Happy Birthday, John le Carré

Today is the birthday of John le Carré, celebrated British author of such espionage classics as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, many of which were turned into films.

More than 94,000 LibraryThing members have cataloged his books. Have you read his work? What are some of your favorites, and what do you enjoy about them?

For more literary events that occurred on this date, see our On This Day page:
https://www.librarything.com/onthisday.php?day=10-19

I went through an intense George Smiley phase in the early 90s and have long held le Carre as a master of the genre, even above Len Deighton, who also has created long and complex series of books. TSWCiFtC is a masterpiece - there is not one extra word nor one lacking. There is an audio drama of the book starring Brian Cox that is amazing. Actually I recommend all of the BBC Radio adaptations with Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley.

I’m sorry to say I haven’t read any le Carré yet, but I’ve been impressed by a couple of books his son Nick Harkaway has written. Since Harkaway has continued his father’s series with Karla’s Choice, I figure I better read some of the originals first. I plan to start with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, unless anybody has a better recommendation?

That's the third in the series, but could work easily enough. There is a longer story arc that spans the books, so you may want to go into this one with more info, but cold is ok, too.

It’s fascinating how Le Carré managed to make spies almost aggressively unglamorous without the books ever becoming dull. There’s always that wonderful sense that all the real work is done in archives and committee rooms, whilst the fieldwork is a kind of accidental by-product. I’d say The spy who came in from the cold and A perfect spy are his best books, taken individually, but all the middle-period books are very strong, really.

Surely 'was' the birthday of JlC - he died in 2020.

I've read a lot of his works, but actually prefer the later less obviously espionage related ones, they have aged better and have more of a relevant political point cf the cold war against russia. The constant gardener is a favourite and night manager

The biggest issue is how to catalogue his works?! By L or C ?? (I've gone for C)

I think the various Spy/Espionage groups are all dorment, but British and Irish Crime is still occasionally active https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/62/British-Irish-Crime-Fiction and would welcome more discussion and members.

>6 reading_fox: At the risk of totally derailing this thread, the verb tense for “birthday is” vs “birthday was” sent me down a rabbit hole to try to determine which is preferred. (My first instinct is present tense. October 19th is, and always will be, the day he was born.) Failing to find a definitive answer, I cite Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac”: “It’s the birthday of the often-quoted Irish writer Oscar Wilde, born in Dublin in 1854.” “It’s the birthday of Eleanor Roosevelt, born in New York City in 1884.”

>7 Charon07: You've been nerd sniped: https://xkcd.com/356/

>8 bnielsen: LOL! 😅 I’m honored to be considered a grammar nerd!

>9 Charon07: I'm probably also one.

I keep a couple of old dictionaries around, so when others try to claim some spelling as wrong I can point to a dictionary where it is spelled that way. Thus turning their argument from "This is Wrong(TM)" to the much weaker "This is different from the way it was taught when I went to school."