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September 23, 2008

Agatha Christie: In her own words

Agatha%20Christie.jpg A couple of posts ago, I talked about what a refreshing pleasure it was to take a break from some pretty heavy-duty "listening" and visit Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in her cozy but murderous village of St. Mary Mead.

And just last week, we got to hear from Dame Christie herself. It seems her grandson found a box of old - very old - reel to reel tapes in which the great mystery writer talked about, among other things, her most famous characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple...and the oft-expressed hope of her readers that they would one day meet.

A report on NPR by Lynn Neary included excerpts from those tapes and, amazingly, Dame Christie's voice sounds almost exactly like Miss Marple's voice when Joan Hickson is the reader on the recorded versions of those books.

It wasn't just hearing Dame Christie's voice...that was special, indeed. It was hearing the "voice" of Miss Marple.

"Quite extraordinary," is how I think both women would have put it.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Audiobooks

Comments

Love Agatha, and just finished the "Curtain". The story that killed off Hercule Poirot. I loved reading bio information that said Dear Agatha killed him off so other writers could not use him. Did she also kill off Miss Marple? If so, can someone direct me to the story?

Posted by: Bill Tress | September 23, 2008 11:14 AM

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While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, Nancy Knight grew up reading nearly everything she could get her hands on, including a probably unhealthy amount of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike, with the obligatory Jane Austen thrown in. She'll still read just about anything you put in front of her, especially the funny or weird. She lives in the city with her books, cat and drum set.

Dave Rosenthal came to The Baltimore Sun as a business reporter in 1987 and now is an assistant managing editor and Sunday editor. He reads a wide range of books (but never as many as he'd like), usually alternating between non-fiction and fiction. Some all-time favorites: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; and anything by Calvin Trillin or John McPhee. He belongs to a book club with a Jewish theme.