http://web.me.com/robgoblin/Site_12/Vanishing_Point_speech.html
There are two rare tracks of Agatha speaking, some of Amelia, and a
few of Aimee (the last three tracks on there are long files, so
they're fairly large. The others are short.)
To follow are the books that Rob and Liv found most helpful - being the
ones that share their point of view on the characters and shaped the
Vanishing Point story. (MM-please add these to the top of each ladies
suggested reading list):
-- Amelia
The Doris L. Rich biography (which was not in the books I gave you,
but is easily available.) This was the source for most of the
material in the documentary.... it talks about her "pathological
optimism."
Amelia's book about the Friendship flight and her journal of her last
flight (which are in the stack of books) are also good.
-- Aimee
The very best book is the Nancy Barr Mavity book that was in the
collection I gave you. This book is very rare, so I just ask
everyone to take special care with it. It's fantastic, though. The
Daniel Epstein biography, Sister Aimee, is also very good. The other
easily available biographies (Least of All Saints by Bahr and
Everybody's Sister) are not as good. "The Vanishing Evangelist" and
"Storming Heaven" are good but somewhat tabloid-y.
-- Agatha
As I was saying to Lee at the end of the session, I think it's helpful
for her to have read "The Mysterious Affair At Styles." If she gets
on a reading kick, the other books that Agatha wrote before her
disappearance were:
The Secret Adversary, The Murder on the Links (referenced in her first
"book jackets" speech), The Man In The Brown Suit, Poirot
Investigates, The Secret of Chimneys, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
(Used bookstores are obviously a great source for these -- Mysterious
Affair At Styles is actually all online, too, I believe.)
The best biography is Gillian Gill's "Agatha Christie: The Woman and
her Mysteries." The Jared Cade (Agatha Christie and the Missing
Eleven Days) is all right; her autobiography is a great source, too.
Agatha's romance novels were written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott
http://www.agathachristie.com/search/articles/?q=Mary%20Westmacott
"Unfinished Portrait" is the book which details a relationship very
similar to her marriage to Archie.
