Agatha Christie's Birthday

 Another year has gone by since I published here data and resources / links that might be of interest to you about Agatha Christie's life and work.

thebiographychannel.co.uk

Biography.com has a short biography and video on Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (1890-1976) better known as Dame Agatha Christie:
Writer, born on September 15, 1890 in Torquay, Devon, SE England, UK. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was the youngest of the three children. Under the surname of her first husband (Colonel Archibald Christie, divorced 1928), she wrote more than 70 detective novels, featuring the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, or the enquiring village lady, Miss Marple. Though she also wrote romance novels (under the name Mary Westmacott), Christie's success as an author of  mysteries has earned her the the title the 'Queen of Crime'. In 1930 she married archaeology professor Max Mallowan, with whom she travelled on several expeditions. Her play The Mousetrap opened in 1952 at the Ambassador Theatre, and holds the record for the longest unbroken run in a London theatre. Several of her stories have become popular films, such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). She was made a dame in 1971. In 1974, Agatha Christie made her last public appearance for the opening night of her play Murder on the Orient Express. She died on January 12, 1976.

15th September 2010 - Agatha Christie's 120th birthday

Today is Agatha Christie's 120th birthday and what you see above is this year's Google Doodle depicting Hercule Poirot, her world famous fictional detective.
Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime, is the best-selling author of all time.  She has sold over two billion books worldwide and has been translated into over 45 languages.  In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote eighty novels and short story collections. (For comprehensive data  click wikipedia.)

Image Credit: answers.com

In the official website besides the latest news, there is a Delicious Death cake recipe (how appropriate!!!) to celebrate this date, yet what really matters for us teachers is further below on our right hand side under HELP & INFO, I'm a teacher. This page gives you links to what they think are the most useful areas of the Christie's official website and links to readers and teachers’ classroom resources created by Christie’s publishers. Their publishers and other academics have prepared reading guides on some of the most famous books (which some of you might have already used in the classroom with secondary learners): And Then There Were None,
Murder on the Orient Express, or Death on the Nile .
With such a vast bibliography, Agatha Christie has become synonymous throughout the world with England.  Her quintessential “English” characters offer a charming view of a bygone era when people sat down to tea in the afternoon and tended roses in their gardens. The richness of the settings in Christie’s novels add to the great enjoyment when reading her novels and she drew on real places when writing her stories.
Teachers can always find something more and if you are a librarian make sure you check out this : there are tips for reading groups, for a session on the history and development of crime fiction, quizzes on the author... DO read it for inspiration!
Here are a couple of related resources that might be of interest to you:
http://www.answers.com/topic/agatha-christie-large-image
http://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/the-queen-of-crime/An-Autobiography-2010/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/15/agatha-christie-google-doodle
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8003559/Agatha-Christie-120th-birthday-anniversary-celebrated-by-Google-Doodle.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2006/09/20/agatha_christie_profile_feature.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8988000/8988240.stm
http://www.englishriviera.co.uk/agathachristie/festival