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Agatha Christie Super Combo Pack – Including Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

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Agatha Christie Super Combo Pack – Including Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

Review Quotes:
“One brilliant woman writing about another: an irresistible combination.”–Antonia Fraser, New York Times bestselling author

Review Quotes:
“This is a warm, intelligent book that does justice both to Agatha Christie’s character and to her distinctive genius as a writer of plays and novels. Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself. If that’s true, she was waiting for the perfect biographer to bring her back to life, and she has found her in Dr. Lucy Worsley.”–A. N. Wilson

Review Quotes:
“Lucy Worsley brings Agatha Christie back to life, revealing a strong, pioneering, highly intelligent woman whose detective novels rank among the best ever written. Worsley shows us Christie’s faults and flaws in the context of her time; she evokes her houses, clothes and the central mystery of her life in spritely sentences with a sharp ear for dialogue. Reading Worsley is as enjoyable as reading Christie herself.”–Ruth Scurr, author of A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows

Review Quotes:
“Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie is as unputdownable as any of the novels by the Queen of Crime herself. Gripping, revealing, and ultimately extremely moving, Agatha Christie is a wonderful tribute to one of the best-loved writers of the twentieth century.”–Amanda Foreman, New York Times bestseller author

Review Quotes:
“With great affection, Worsley masterfully maneuvers her way through Christie’s life and prolific oeuvre.”– “Kirkus Reviews (starred)”

Review Quotes:
“Worsley comes up with another winner in this sprightly, endearing biography. Agatha Christie was elusive, Worsley argues, because she ‘deliberately played upon the fact that she seemed so ordinary.’ Worsley also shows how Christie took care to create narratives that put ‘the lives of women centre stage’ as well as how her personal experiences informed her work One of Christie’s gifts, writes Worsley, was to ‘democratise the Gothic.’ While building a devoted audience, she was also breaking new ground. Throughout, Worsley takes us behind the scenes to reveal classic ‘Christie tricks’ from her books. With great affection, Worsley masterfully maneuvers her way through Christie’s life and prolific oeuvre.”

 

— “Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)”

Review Quotes:
“In the best biography of Agatha Christie ever written, Lucy Worsley gets to the soul–the complex, troubled, but big soul–of our greatest whodunnit writer with laser-like precision. There will not now need to be another biography of the queen of the detective story written for decades.”–Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

Review Quotes:
“Agatha Christie was a modernist, an iconoclast, and a groundbreaker, according to this excellent biography from historian Worsley. Worsley offers close readings of Christie’s work and presents a careful reframe of the novelist’s famous 1926 disappearance. Drawing on personal letters and modern criticism, Worsley manages to make her subject feel fresh and new. This is a must-read for Christie fans.”– “Publishers Weekly, (starred review)”

Review Quotes:
“Presenting Christie as living a ‘modern life, ‘ firmly in and ‘of her time’ is Dr. Worsley’s key aim: neither nostalgic nor part of the heritage industry. She succeeds brilliantly, for the Agatha Chirstie (woman and author) that emerges from this astute and, at times, justifiably compassionate book is anything but cosy.”– “Country Life (UK) ”

Publisher Marketing:
A new, fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from celebrated literary and cultural historian Lucy Worsley.

 

“Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.”

 

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was “just” an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, “She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern.” She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.

 

So why–despite all the evidence to the contrary–did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure?

 

She was born in 1890 into a world that had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It’s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman.

 

With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was–truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

 

Review Citations:

  • Library Journal 07/01/2022 pg. 65 (EAN 9781639362523, Hardcover)
  • Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2022 (EAN 9781639362523, Hardcover) – *Starred Review
  • Publishers Weekly 07/11/2022 (EAN 9781639362523, Hardcover) – *Starred Review

 

 

Contributor Bio:Worsley, Lucy
Lucy Worsley OBE is Chief Curator at the charity Historic Royal Palaces. She also presents history documentaries for the BBC. Her bestselling books include Queen VictoriaJane Austen at HomeThe Art of the English Murderand If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. In 2019, her BBC One program Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley won a BAFTA. She lives in England.

(Two issues of the Strand featuring works by Agatha Christie that were published for the first time in the US)

 

Strand Magazine issue 61: Unpublished Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie

(Strand Magazine: Unpublished Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie celebrates the great titans of the Golden Age of mysteries)

Strand Magazine: Unpublished Raymond Chandler and the first US appearance of Christmas Adventure by Agatha Christie, also fiction by John Floyd, David Marcum, Rob Witherspoon and an exclusive interview with James Lee Burke.

We’re proud to present an unpublished Raymond Chandler in the latest issue of the Strand. Professor Sarah Trott provides an introduction which looks at the biographical context of this gem. Before achieving fame as an author, Chandler was a career oil executive who worked for the Dabney Oil Syndicate for about a decade until he was fired at the age of forty-four. “Advice to an Employer” shows a different side to Raymond Chandler. The wry humor is there, but the piece also reveals a silly, fun side to an author long associated with novels about the seamy side of LA.

We are also pleased to share a story featuring a certain little Belgian detective with a waxed moustache and egg-shaped head, who finds himself far away from the comforts of his usual London life, celebrating an old-fashioned family Christmas in the English countryside. Agatha Christie’s “Christmas Adventure,” originally published in the UK in 1923, was decades later expanded into the much longer short story many readers are familiar with. This is the first time Christie’s shorter version has appeared in publication in the US. The original version is just as fun as the expanded one, complete with sprawling mansion, house-party of young people, and an unlikely trinket in the pudding. This fall, HarperCollins will release “Christmas Adventure” in Midwinter Murder an anthology of Christie’s short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Our humorous theme continues with John Floyd’s “The Ironwood File,” in which a sleazy boss gets the tables turned on him from an unlikely source. Meanwhile, Rob Witherspoon’s “Le Morte d’Author” shows that even the personification of death has a witty side. We round off the fiction this issue with the Great Detective and his loyal sidekick solving a medical mystery involving one of Watson’s patients in David Marcum’s “The Triangle of Death.”

We have an interview with the incomparable James Lee Burke, creator of the equally incomparable Dave Robicheaux. Burke himself is every bit as interesting as his creation and spoke about his favorite Western films, the creative process behind his works and the state of the world we live in.

Also in this issue, we have the scoop on the nominees for The Strand Critics Awards. The nominees for Best Debut and Best Novel are a varied bunch, chosen by critics from CNN, NPR, South Florida Sun SentinelPublishers WeeklyLA Times, and USA Today. This year’s Strand Magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards go to the trailblazing Tess Gerritsen and the always innovative Walter Mosley. And as usual our skilled staff of book reviewers spotlights the latest mystery and thriller novels and DVDs.

Strand Magazine: Unpublished Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie issue is the 61st issue of the Strand and the second time we’ve released works by Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.

The Strand Magazine continues to bring our readers the best in fiction, interviews with authors, and book and audiobook reviews. In the past nine years, we’ve featured unpublished works by writers ranging from Mark TwainJohn SteinbeckF. Scott FitzgeraldRaymond Chandler, H.G. WellsAgatha ChristieDashiell Hammett, Tennessee Williams, and Joseph Heller . 

For more back issues with works by literary legends, follow this link!

Tenth Anniversary Issue of The Strand: Unpublished Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, and Alexander McCall Smith

An issue befitting our ten years, Hercule Poirot appears for the first time in the US since 1975 with “The Incident of the Dog’s Ball.” Part II of the Empty Chair by Graham Greene, as well as fiction by Alexander McCall Smith and R.L. Stine.
R.L. Stine takes us to a journey where we encounter a sequel Frankenstein, where the nefarious doctor is visited by a mysterious stranger who blackmails with exposure to vengeful townsfolk.
The legendary author of The Eagle Has Landed, Jack Higgins speaks about the creative process behind his bestselling books that have been read by millions of fans.
And last but not least, “The Incident of the Dog’s Ball” has Hercule Poirot seeking answers to a compelling and daunting case from an unlikely source.

Strand Magazine: Exclusive with David Suchet

The fourth issue of the Strand with its stunning cover is a splendid item for the mystery buff, it featured an interview with actor David Suchet, and fiction by Catherine Aird, Peter Lovesey, & H.R.F. Keating. We also featured an article about the real life detective Vidocq.