- Hardcover: 544 pages
- Publisher: Headline Review; First Edition First Impression edition (6 Sep 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0755314875
- ISBN-13: 978-0755314874
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 343,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘A triumphant success’
(A. N. Wilson, Daily Mail )‘Highly accomplished’
(Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday )‘Thompson does a fabulous job of getting inside her head’
(Rachel Cooke, Observer )‘A superlative and rapturously written biography’
(Roger Lewis, Daily Express )‘The most definitive biography so far’
(Andrea Mullaney, Scotland on Sunday )‘The last word on Agatha Christie... A superb piece of biography’
(Charles Osborne, Literary Review )'An excellent biography'
(Jake Kerridge, Telegraph Review )'Outstanding'
(Kate Mosse, Observer )Evening Standard
'This splendid account of her life and work is unlikely to be bettered'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
what a joy to read a biography that gets inside the head of its subject, and makes the reader feel what THEY felt! I really understood Agatha Christie reading this book. It went behind her image and gave us a three-dimensional human being, a woman who was complex and vulnerable and not always very nice. Some biographies are just facts and figures. This one is like a novel in its insight. I found it gripping and moving and I can't stop thinking about Agatha now ...
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I like my biographies to make a clear distinction between fact, opinion, supposition and downright fantasy. They should also follow a clear line, preferably chronological. This biography is not one of those.
Though the facts are all here, they are presented in a somewhat confusing manner, with a tendency to flit around from person to person and from year to year, which often negatively affects the clarity of the narrative. The author's opinions getting far too much emphasis. She presents herself as the only arbiter of truth, in the manner of "x says that y was Christie's best book, but in fact it was not - z was". Quotes from many of Christie's books have been mined to support suppositions, and it becomes weary reading at times. A surfeit of "of course"s and "in fact"s grate throughout - my comparitively high rating is an acknowledgement of the academic depth of the book, bu this comes at the cost of readability.
It's also quite annoying and without any logic that the author describes so many photographs and of so many people, and that so few are reproduced in the book.
And yes, the author reveals the ending of too many of Christie's books. Not bad in itself, but the author does this without warning, so don't read this unless you've read all her books already or you have a short memory for such matters. It's part of a sort of projected arrogance throughout which, for example, assumes that the reader has read all of Christie's works already; that they know who all the people named are/were; that they need no explanation of acronyms and abbreviations; that they all speak French (foreign-language quotes are usually left untranslated) and so on.
Though the facts are all here, they are presented in a somewhat confusing manner, with a tendency to flit around from person to person and from year to year, which often negatively affects the clarity of the narrative. The author's opinions getting far too much emphasis. She presents herself as the only arbiter of truth, in the manner of "x says that y was Christie's best book, but in fact it was not - z was". Quotes from many of Christie's books have been mined to support suppositions, and it becomes weary reading at times. A surfeit of "of course"s and "in fact"s grate throughout - my comparitively high rating is an acknowledgement of the academic depth of the book, bu this comes at the cost of readability.
It's also quite annoying and without any logic that the author describes so many photographs and of so many people, and that so few are reproduced in the book.
And yes, the author reveals the ending of too many of Christie's books. Not bad in itself, but the author does this without warning, so don't read this unless you've read all her books already or you have a short memory for such matters. It's part of a sort of projected arrogance throughout which, for example, assumes that the reader has read all of Christie's works already; that they know who all the people named are/were; that they need no explanation of acronyms and abbreviations; that they all speak French (foreign-language quotes are usually left untranslated) and so on.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a hefty book, but worth the effort of reading it. True, it does give away a number of plot endings and details from the novels, but I assume that most people who are prepared to read such a lengthy biography of Agatha Christie will have read most of her novels.
I am surprised by the number of people who complain that Thompson takes Christie's autobiographical novels as fact, and 'looks for clues' in the whodunnits. I found Thompson was much better than many others at differentiating between facts and opinions. Also, although novels may not mirror their writers' lives, they do reveal something about the people who wrote them. After all, wasn't it Poirot who said that whether people tell truth or lies, they can't help revealing something about themselves?!
I didn't agree with everything Thompson said (who ever does about a biography?!) but I found this book to be a well-written, interesting, well-researched and on the whole, fair account of Christie's life. Minor quibble: it would have benefited from more photos of the family members Thompson mentions...and especially the photos she describes!
I am surprised by the number of people who complain that Thompson takes Christie's autobiographical novels as fact, and 'looks for clues' in the whodunnits. I found Thompson was much better than many others at differentiating between facts and opinions. Also, although novels may not mirror their writers' lives, they do reveal something about the people who wrote them. After all, wasn't it Poirot who said that whether people tell truth or lies, they can't help revealing something about themselves?!
I didn't agree with everything Thompson said (who ever does about a biography?!) but I found this book to be a well-written, interesting, well-researched and on the whole, fair account of Christie's life. Minor quibble: it would have benefited from more photos of the family members Thompson mentions...and especially the photos she describes!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Revelations
I was really quite surprised by this book. It was not what I expected.
I think one of the first items that got my attention was Laura Thompson's use of footnotes. Read more
I think one of the first items that got my attention was Laura Thompson's use of footnotes. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Dr. Robert A. Josey
Pot, Kettle, Black.
Although this biography is on the whole well written, it suffers from the very thing the author criticises in other people's work, namely, it presents events and conversations as... Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2009 by Swanson
An unsolved mystery,
I do love Agatha CHristie and this is a fascinating, and very readable book about all areas of her life. Read more
Published on 17 Nov 2009 by A. Hope
Enjoyable and rather brave
It's become fashionable to deride Christie in comparison with the supposedly 'deep' works of P D James and Ruth Rendell, but in this biography Thompson stoutly and wisely takes... Read more
Published on 24 Sep 2009 by D. M. Purkiss
Like wading through porridge
I found this book confusing and badly written - my attention was lost after the first chapter and I had no real enthusiasm for trudging on any further.
Published on 17 May 2009 by Bachgen
Long-winded and muddled
If only Laura Thompson had modelled her writing-style on Agatha Christie's clear,concise way of telling a story. Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2008 by booksetc
Fascinating and Compelling
On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The account of Agatha's early life up to the famous "disappearance" was particularly interesting. Read more
Published on 14 Nov 2008 by Mrs. J. Redmond
Over reliance on the books to flesh out lack of original material
Any biographer of Agatha Christie has to deal with the fact that the 'Queen of Crime' guarded her privacy and never gave interviews, so there is a paucity of original material to... Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2008 by Mr. T. Harvey
Too thorough?
This book has so much to say about the genius that is Agatha Christie that it disappears under its own weigt from time to time. Read more
Published on 16 Feb 2008 by Chuffnobbler
Long-winded and disappointing
The facts of Agatha's life drown under an avalanche of opinions (mainly Thompson's which go on forever) and numerous quotes. At times I felt I was reading a rather soppy novel. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2007 by Sylvia "Voracious Reader"
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