Dorothy J. (DotJ) - reviewed on + 33 more book reviews
From "The Agatha Christie Companion" - Berkley Books Copyright 1984 - Revised 1989
Among Christie's enormous wartime output was this charming volume of reminiscences about her travels in the Middle East during the 1930's. Readers will find another side of Christie emerging in these pages - a resilient, enthusiastic traveler whose obvious love of this ancient part of the world led her to put up with fleas, sandstorms, and Stone Age plumbing, during a decade of annual journeys to Syria and Iraq. Since these excursions were working expeditions for the Mallowans (Agatha "hired on" as a labeler and sketcher of unearthed artifacts), archeology figures porminently in the book. The title, in fact, is a pun on "tell," the Arabic word for hill or mound, which is used in the Middle East to describe the hill-like shapes of buried archaeoligical sites.
"A witty, chuckling book," said 'Books' (New York Herald Tribune) "Only a person with irrepressible bounce could have stood it all and turned up with such an entertaining book." (11/17/46)
Among Christie's enormous wartime output was this charming volume of reminiscences about her travels in the Middle East during the 1930's. Readers will find another side of Christie emerging in these pages - a resilient, enthusiastic traveler whose obvious love of this ancient part of the world led her to put up with fleas, sandstorms, and Stone Age plumbing, during a decade of annual journeys to Syria and Iraq. Since these excursions were working expeditions for the Mallowans (Agatha "hired on" as a labeler and sketcher of unearthed artifacts), archeology figures porminently in the book. The title, in fact, is a pun on "tell," the Arabic word for hill or mound, which is used in the Middle East to describe the hill-like shapes of buried archaeoligical sites.
"A witty, chuckling book," said 'Books' (New York Herald Tribune) "Only a person with irrepressible bounce could have stood it all and turned up with such an entertaining book." (11/17/46)
