∎ PDF Free The 855 to Baghdad From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express Andrew Eames 9781585676736 Books

The 855 to Baghdad From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express Andrew Eames 9781585676736 Books

Download As PDF : The 855 to Baghdad From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express Andrew Eames 9781585676736 Books

The 855 to Baghdad From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express Andrew Eames 9781585676736 Books

The cover says it is about 'on the trail of Agatha Christie' and I found it had very little that one doesn't all ready know from her own autobiography. Few and far accounts on Agatha - it took pages and pages before it said anything about her.

It is mostly a political and personal historical views on Iraq, Turkey and their towns. It is all over the place w/archaeological tidbits, political and cultural views, personal anecdotes, etc - anything but Agatha facts and stories. It took me forever to read this and even purchased it in Kindle form so I could do searches for the word "Agatha".

Don't bother w/this this one - as you can get more information from her own books. I don't feel I wasted my money but it did waste my time.


Tags : The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express [Andrew Eames] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>With her marriage to her first husband, Archie Christie, over, she decided to take a much-needed holiday; the Caribbean had been her intended destination,Andrew Eames,The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express,Harry N. Abrams,158567673X,Essays & Travelogues,Authors, English;20th century;Biography.,British;Iraq;History;20th century.,Middle East;Description and travel.,20th century,Authors, English,Biography,British,CHRISTIE, AGATHA, 1890-1976,DESCRIPTION AND TRAVEL,Essays,General Adult,History,History Ancient General,Iraq,Middle East,Middle EastNorth Africa,Non-Fiction,Railroad travel,TRAVEL,TRAVEL Essays & Travelogues,Travel - General,United States,1890-1976,Christie, Agatha,,Knowledge

The 855 to Baghdad From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express Andrew Eames 9781585676736 Books Reviews

Could not gt into this story...boring
For all lovers of train travel in the grand style and admirers of Agatha Christie. A most satisfying journey.
A wonderful book and it arrived on time and very well packed. I would highly recommend the book as it was recommended to me! Thank you also for the excellent service!
I bought this book for my Mum because she loves Christie and ended up reading it myself. I was especially taken by the sections in Eastern Europe and Iraq. This book introduced me to places in geography and history that I had not been to before and was a pleasant and thought-provoking read.
I think the author inserted himself far too often in this account of traveling the routes Agatha Christie traveled. He includes some of Agatha Christie's biography but adds nothing new to already published information. He also includes some history of lands through which he traveled but did not, for me, provide any insight into why there is so much conflict there today. Generally an adequate accounting of what has happened to these railroad routes in the years since Agatha Christie's day but not an inspiring travel book.
Up front and immediately - this is a great find! From the enticing title (although I have never read her popular novels) to the book jacket blub that the author evidences a "sly wit" in his account of a journey through tense times, to a targeted Iraq, straight into a quote
If you cannot find Osama, Bomb Iraq
If the markets are a drama, Bomb Iraq
If the terrorists are frisky
Pakistan is looking shifty
North Korea is too risky, Bomb Iraq.

Or from a fellow train traveler in rural Turkey about President Bush"You have traveled. I have traveled. We understand each other. But President Bush? Has he traveled? What is that expression--travel broadens the mind?" Eames' humour and the selections he chooses to write of, are far from sly!

Eames a British journalist recounts his travels by train, ferry and bus from London to Baghdad and onto Ur as replicates the journey that Agatha Christie took back in 1928, but with far more difficulty as this is in the age of Desert Storm and the Axis of Evil. Never mind, he only gets bombed once, and that by his "own side", at the conclusion of his quest in the area of the (claimed) original site of the "Garden of Eden". He travels partly on the famed Orient Express with a cast of characters he suspects of being invented for his book's purpose by Agatha Christy herself. He notes that the "Swiss train track-men who walk the length of the `consist', tapping wheels, keep their eyes firmly on their task. To raise the gaze to window level," he says,"would have risked invading the privacy of a camp hairdresser touching up his highlights or a bouffant old goat touching up his African princess."

He becomes far more serious about the openness and genuine hospitality of the Iraq people at the conclusion of his adventure, noting the warmth and friendliness, mixed with caution and fear of Sadam's constant presence. This however is no "soft adventure" as the author calls those travel narratives of crossing the Atlantic in a barrel or seeking a punch-up in a bar, it contains some hard-core history, acute observations of people and politics and is a great - too rapidly finished- read.

The author hopes, as do many of the peoples of biblical Babylon he meets that the seemingly, now unstoppable war will cleanse away the isolation and mistrust of the region, the original "cradle of civilization" as the floods of the rainy season in Mesopotamia "purge the streets of the accumulated rubbish in a free-flowing enema."
To quote from GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE, "Eames laces the book with Christie trivia and a certain sly wit. His descriptions of the people he meets and the places he visited are both vivid and perceptive... THE 855 TO BAGHDAD is a thoroughly enjoyable read that combines an Agatha-centric travelogue with a thought-provoking journey through a benighted land."

Treading lightly throughout this work is Eames' own spiritual quest. Some have noted the book's weak ending and it is rather like the last gasp of an arriving steam locomotive. Since the inspiration for the book occured during an earlier trip that included Aleppo, perhaps Eames, an atheist, could have ended the book with the advice--really a parting blessing--that he received in Konya from Alp Aslan, a Muslim. "Go," he said, "write a travel book in search of the miracle of creation. Go looking for God." (P. 211) However, such an ending would have required that Eames double-back at the conclusion of his present journey--an arduous and awkward maneuver he was not prepared to make at present--either in writing or in life.
The cover says it is about 'on the trail of Agatha Christie' and I found it had very little that one doesn't all ready know from her own autobiography. Few and far accounts on Agatha - it took pages and pages before it said anything about her.

It is mostly a political and personal historical views on Iraq, Turkey and their towns. It is all over the place w/archaeological tidbits, political and cultural views, personal anecdotes, etc - anything but Agatha facts and stories. It took me forever to read this and even purchased it in form so I could do searches for the word "Agatha".

Don't bother w/this this one - as you can get more information from her own books. I don't feel I wasted my money but it did waste my time.