Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie

 

Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie (as Agatha Christie Mallowan).

Published 27th August 2015 by Harper Collins.

Audio Book narrated by Judith Boyd.

From the cover of the book:

Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.

Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again!

To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq. When friends asked what this strange ‘other life’ was like, she decided to answer their questions by writing down her adventures in this eye-opening book.

Described by the author as a ‘meandering chronicle of life on an archaeological dig’, Come, Tell Me How You Live is Agatha Christie's very personal memoir of her time spent in this breath-taking corner of the globe, living among the working men in tents in the desert where recorded human history began. Acclaimed as ‘a pure pleasure to read’, it is an altogether remarkable and increasingly poignant narrative, a fascinating, vibrant and vivid portrait of everyday life in a world now long since vanished.

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Come, Tell Me How You Live is a short autobiography/travelogue by Agatha Christie (writing as Agatha Christie Mallowan) about her experiences accompanying her second husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, on his digs in Iraq and Syria. 

Written in the 1930s (although not published until 1946) it is full of delicious, and often humorous, reminiscences of travelling to far away places to delve beneath the sand in search of pre-history, but it is anything but dry and dusty. Instead Christie, who goes to great pains to say it is not an account of history, regales her audience with golden nuggets about the human side of the expeditions - right from the necessary arrangements before setting off (buying clothes and packing); the logistics of travel, living accommodations, and staff; the people they meet; and lots of lovely episodes that take place while they are in foreign climes.

I did not really know what to expect from this book, but I found it so engaging. Christie's love of travel (especially trains), her spirit of adventure, and her fascination with what makes people tick seeps from the page. It is full of intriguing detail about travel, expeditions, and the landscape and culture of the Middle East in the 1930s, and proved to be required reading when it comes to the background of her mysteries with archaeological settings.

This book was my July pick for #ReadChristie2025 for the prompt Archaeologists for this year's theme of Characters and Careers. I listened to the excellent audio book narrated by Judith Boyd - although i do recommend having a text copy to refer to as well, as it is full of photographs and maps which really enrich the experience. 

Come, Tell Me How You Live is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

About the author:

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.