Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making

Gave this to my mom for Christmas as she is an avid Agatha Christie fan. She had never seen it before and is excited to read it!

I have been an Agatha Christie fan for years and have most of her books. It was interesting to see how the kernels of stories grew into best-selling mysteries. I kept copies of her books nearby as I read so I could reference them and, in some cases, re-read them. Was sorry when I reached the end of the book; it was like losing an old friend. I will be visiting Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making every time I open a Christie mystery.

Interesting if you're a writer wannabe, to see how Christie put into practice the standard plotting instructions that so many writing books advocate. She gave herself many, many options for a story and narrowed them down to what became the published story. She also wrote one line descriptions of major scenes, assigned each a letter of the alphabet and then very easily and conveniently shuffled them around - so much more convenient than the corkboard with 3x5 cards of the writing books. And how inspiring, to learn that she had to force herself to sit down and write them once she had plotted them --even the greats have to struggle! It did get a little boring because the process she went through was always the same, though enriched by the author's opinions of what her strengths and weaknesses were.

My sister and I are avid Agatha Christie fans. She was and is my favourite writer. I have read her since Middle School and still read all her books over and over again. She's a keeper. We have read all her writings and even her autobiography. I love hearing about her life and catching glimpses of her through notes and journals that she wrote. Very interesting...........<3

What an absolute delight! If you're a writer or an Agatha Christie fan, you will find this fascinating! What a clever book to have put together. I do, however, feel I must forewarn you: Reading this has left me longing to read Agatha's work again :)

After a while I got very tired of reading so much detail without actually relating that information to the relevant book. If one is a very avid Christie fan and can remember the plots of all 80 or so stories it would probably mean more. I've read most of her books and many I've read 3 or 4 times and yet I was often lost in this tribute. I gather there's a second and have no plans to get it.

Really enjoying this. It wasn't quite what I expected--I expected Agatha was a heavy, detailed plotter, and it turns out she really wasn't--but it was such a great glimpse into how this genius author worked.

I knew my daughter would HAVE TO have this book so Amazon came through right on time with shipping and it arrived while I was visiting her. Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making is a delightful addition to our Agatha Christie collection. I will order the Kindle version for myself SOON!

finaelement on n'apprend pas grand chose de plus sur les romans policiers d'Agatha Christie, qui reste toujours aussi mystérieuse

Lots of information in this book!

John Curran hat sich der Herkulesaufgabe gestellt, die zahlreichen ungeordneten und unsystematischen Notizbücher von Agatha Christie durchzugehen und so aufzubereiten, dass sie in gedruckter Form lesbar sind. Ich fand es faszinierend zu lesen, wie die berühmten Geschichten wie "Mord im Orientexpress" etc. entstanden sind und welche Wandlungen sie dabei durchgemacht haben. Außerdem sind in den Notizbüchern zwei bisher unveröffentlichte Poirot-Kurzgeschichten aufgetaucht.Wen es interessiert, wie der Verstand einer Krimiautorin bei der Arbeit funktioniert und auch wer selbst Ambitionen hat, einen Krimi zu schreiben, findet hier reichlich Stoff.

Mr Curran has written a wonderful book to add a unique contribution to the vast collection of books about Agatha Christie.He has been given access to a collection of notebooks which Agatha Christie used to record her thoughts about her writing in progress. He has written in so much detail about these notebooks that the resulting text will give all Christie fans so much more insight into her thinking and planning for so many of her books. Details include much about her characters, name changes and plot changes during her writing and even facsimiles of diagrams she drew to note settings for individual stories (e.g. Death in the Clouds, Evil Under the Sun, Towards Zero) make for fascinating reading. Two 'new' undiscovered short stories are included in the book. There is so much more and I'm sure every Christie fan will find something new of interest.Sadly, there were no available notebooks covering 'Murder of Roger Ackroyd', 'Murder on the Orient Express' and a few others but this unavailability is, of course, not down to the author.An absolute must for all Christie fans to buy and a bargain at the reduced Amazon price.

一番最初の、クリスティー女史が作品の構想を練っている場面。筆者の想像だろうけれど、この本の中で一番面白かった。実際こうだったに違いないと思えたほど。最後に付いている主人公の未発表作2編は、筆者の解説があった方がいいのか、ない方がいいのか、意見が分かれると思う。ストーリー自体はそんなにひどくないと思うので、Poirotが好きな方には解説なしで読んだ方が楽しいと思う。筆者の解説（突っ込みというか）を読むと、「出版されなかった理由」が垣間見えてしまうので、そういう裏事情などが好きな人にはお勧めだが。上記2つに挟まれたこの本の本編に当たる部分は、クリスティー作品を網羅した人でないと面白さがわからないかもしれない。コアなファン向けの解説書という感じだった。