Back in June, I challenged myself to read all of Agatha Christie’s books by the end of the year. Last week, I completed this goal. Eighty novels and short story collections and two nonfiction books. This does not include the books she wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but 82 books seemed like more than enough.
What did I learn from this? First, her most popular books – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Orient Express, to name two – are popular for a reason. But she also wrote many that, while not as well known, I thought reached a similar level of quality. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Endless Night are just two of them.
Christie was also someone who incorporated her life experiences into her work. While most people think of her stories as all set in quaint English villages, and most of them were, she also worked her experiences in the Middle East with her archeologist husband into a number of her stories.
They were also very clever, too. While someone who wrote 80+ books could see themselves getting repetitive, Christie avoided that for the most part. In fact, there were some cases where I assumed the book I was reading was a retread of another, only to be proved wrong before long.
But for all their good points, there are some negatives that should be addressed. First, she dropped some very casual racism into her stories (and, infamously, the original title of And Then There Were None). While it’s worth pointing out that the racism faded as the years went on, it was still present in a great deal of her work. Second, sexism seemed ingrained in her work, since it almost certainly was in her life and the society around her. Whether those issues are enough to disqualify her work or should be read with caveats as being products of their time, I’ll leave to other debates.
There’s no doubt that Christie is an incredible, influential writer, and I’m glad I spent this year going through her bibliography. I’m not sure I would commit to such a huge reading challenge in such a short time span again, though, as towards the end it felt more like work than enjoyment. If you decide to follow in my footsteps, I recommend giving yourself more than half a year.
So that’s that. Thanks to my grandmother for being such an influence, even if it was so many years after the fact. I had an enjoyable, mystery-filled year.