We watched VERA last night, and then loaded up the fireplace before going to bed. It was still blazing away when I came out this morning to cook my porridge and the living room is warm and cozy. Goodbye, puffer jacket; hello shirtsleeves!
It's too early to brave the cold morning outside, and so I took "The 8.55 to Baghdad" while cooking my porridge. Proust can wait for another day as can T.E. Lawrence even though he got to Baghdad well before me.
I've always needed a reason to travel - work mainly - and the author of "The 8.55 to Baghdad" found it in Agatha Christie's life. He replicated her rail journeys to the archaeological sites where she met her second husband, Max Mallowan, and worked with him on his ecavations while also pursuing her career as a novelist. It's a very Paul Theroux-style narrative with bits about the Orient Express, the Balkans, and Iraq.
It's a bit of a mixed bag - and the author's use of ten words when five would do, doesn't help - and at four hundred pages, it might become a struggle but I hope to finish it before my own "Appointment in Samarra".
