Interestingly he seems to be writing a corrective to Nick Herron\u2019s Slough House series\u2026also it seems to be about the agent runner being seduced.\u00a0\u00a0 One might say penetrated.\u00a0 But hard to tell so far.<\/p>\n
So often her novels concern two characters (usually men) circling each other, the one trying to murder the other. The would-be victim usually triumphs, often by killing his assassin, but in this particular long and complicated dance of death set in Greece, a young American aids and abets a rather nastier American in covering up a murder because he looks like his father, <\/em>the intended victim saves his would be murderer from the Police.<\/p>\n A study in no revenge.\u00a0 Set largely in Venice, a man will not kill or expose his father in law, after his very young wife has committed suicide in Majorca.<\/p>\n Mike Nichols in quotes from his 150 closest friends.\u00a0 Witty, brilliant and I wrote notes all over it.<\/p>\n Misunderstandings and how to understand them and what they tell us about how we work.\u00a0 Or don\u2019t. Another fine book from the finest current essayist.<\/p>\n What can I say?\u00a0 I adore her.\u00a0 Favourites:\u00a0 Downtown<\/em> is wonderful and\u00a0 Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets <\/em>is wonderfully funny.<\/p>\n A recurring character is bumped off.<\/p>\n A very good one.\u00a0 Maigret jumps on a train and is almost bumped off.\u00a0 Who is the madman??<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some discussion about how good we think this quartet is.\u00a0\u00a0 I didn\u2019t finish this one.<\/p>\n On writing with style, from a master, nicely interpreted and linked. Finely chosen and edited.\u00a0 Excellent advice for writers.<\/p>\n An early novel about the sole survivor of a massacred family, as she grows up and deals with just what happened that night when her brother may have murdered her entire family.<\/p>\n What joy to have a writer friend who sends you his latest thriller every year?\u00a0\u00a0 He always has a great premise.\u00a0\u00a0 Here a Prison Break devastates a nearby local town, and sets in motion a female cop with a million dollars bounty to destroy the twelve who plotted, murdered the officers, escaped, invaded the local town with murder rape and mayhem.\u00a0 And he returns to his Jane Whitefield books theme with a powerful female, tracking, hunting and in this case eliminating some really nasty people.<\/p>\n How fortunate to have a writer friend married to another writer.\u00a0 I loved both the Perry books.\u00a0 Stepping away from her excellent Dead Dog series, this is a fine novel where everything happens at the end.\u00a0 It\u2019s very short and I could have taken a lot more.<\/p>\n Re-reading these wonderful books.\u00a0 Lucia and Georgie are surely two of the greatest comic inventions in literature.\u00a0 The book is exquisite, hilarious, and a delight.\u00a0 A Curry cook appears as a Guru to fool Miss Map and her rival acolytes. Exquisitely bitchy novels about life in home counties rural England.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a big Grisham fan.\u00a0 To me he writes like a lawyer.\u00a0 I abandoned this. I wrote earlier (1995) about him the rather cruel line that he is \u201cThe MacDonald\u2019s of writing.\u201d\u00a0 But see later. I really enjoyed one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m afraid I put it back on the shelves.\u00a0 I might give it another go, a) because I was on pain killers and b) I think it should be better than it is and I don\u2019t want to misjudge it.\u00a0\u00a0 For me it\u2019s always about the writing.\u00a0 Are they good at writing a sentence? \u00a0Compare any page of this to Salman Rushdie\u2019s latest novel and you\u2019ll see the difference.\u00a0 Salman\u2019s prose sparkles.\u00a0 It feels effortless, which of course indicates a great deal of effort went into it. I know that\u2019s not fair because Salman is a genius. I think it\u2019s the shape that she\u2019s chosen and I might dip into and see why it doesn\u2019t grab me when I like everything about the story.<\/p>\n Maigret is perplexed by the murder of a nightclub owner, which threatens his reputation.<\/p>\n The rather wonderful Dave Eggers sent me a copy of his latest book.\u00a0 He dispatched the text to me in the summer and I giggled happily through the entire, though rather short, fable, about an ignorant, vain, hopelessly inadequate, newly appointed Captain of a ship. I can’t imagine who he had in mind.\u00a0 I found it hilarious, and I sent him a quote, not just because he wonderfully interviewed me about my Sortabiography in San Francisco last year, but because I thought he successfully lampooned the Idiot in Chief where many I think have failed.\u00a0\u00a0 They allow their hatred into their writing.\u00a0 Here he just gently, mildly mocks and it is so much more deadly.\u00a0 He had me laughing out loud.\u00a0 Not an easy thing to achieve. I hope it does well. The Trump Presidential Library will be a room filled with books about what a useless, treasonable, shite he is.\u00a0 A new book drops every day.\u00a0 Dave\u2019s is different. It\u2019s funny.\u00a0 I think Trump is funny, though dangerously so.<\/p>\n An exquisite read.\u00a0 Salman at the top of his game.\u00a0\u00a0 His writing is delightful.\u00a0 His take on Quixote is brilliant.\u00a0 I shall re-read it soon.<\/p>\n The Booker Prize winner from 1979.\u00a0 A perfect short novel.\u00a0 Entirely built up with close character observations of all the outsiders who live on the boats at Chelsea Reach.\u00a0 Delightful, less is so more.\u00a0 I was happy to read it again, and would again.<\/p>\n A Slough House novel.\u00a0 The 8th<\/sup> in this series about the losers at Slow House.\u00a0\u00a0 Great characters.\u00a0 I think I\u2019ve read every word he wrote.<\/p>\n A Moscow novel set in 1913.\u00a0 Interesting but not perfect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Short, little novella.\u00a0\u00a0 About revenge.\u00a0\u00a0 Of the literary kind.\u00a0 A tiny book which packs a punch.<\/p>\n A play about Nils Bohr and Quantum Theory.\u00a0 first produced in 1988. It is mainly about espionage, focusing on a British female spymaster (Hapgood) and her juggling of career and motherhood.<\/p>\n Lovely French novels about the search for spring water in the south of France.<\/p>\n (Read in French.)<\/p>\n A very fine writer.\u00a0 I love her work.<\/p>\n Abandoned.\u00a0 Rather been down this Louis XIV a lot track recently. See Versailles on TV.<\/p>\n Part Two of the epic trilogy.\u00a0 Totally gripping.<\/p>\n I love her.\u00a0 This was the first.\u00a0 Happy to catch up.<\/p>\n Ravelstein is Saul Bellow’s final novel. Published in 2000, when Bellow was eighty-five years old, it received widespread critical acclaim.\u00a0 It tells the tale of a friendship between a university professor and a writer, and the complications that animate their erotic and intellectual attachments in the face of impending death. The novel is a\u00a0roman \u00e0 clef<\/a>\u00a0written in the form of a memoir. The narrator is in Paris with Abe Ravelstein, a renowned professor, and Nikki, his lover. Ravelstein, who is dying, asks the narrator to write a memoir about him after he dies. After his death, the narrator and his wife go on holiday to the Caribbean. The narrator catches a tropical disease and flies back to the United States to convalesce. Eventually, on recuperation, he decides to write the memoir.<\/p>\n Great re-reading.<\/p>\n Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0John Le Carr\u00e9 <\/strong><\/p>\n The Honourable Schoolboy. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Le Carr\u00e9 <\/strong><\/p>\n Smiley\u2019s People.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Le Carr\u00e9 <\/strong><\/p>\n Dave Eggers sent me this book.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMr. Idle \u2014Hope the summer\u2019s been good to you and yours. No obligation to read this, but given your interest in politics and humor I thought I\u2019d send this. After trying many thousands of ways to address this horrible time, I wrote a sort-of satire. Maybe it\u2019s some kind of distant cousin to Hello Sailor. Do not bother with it unless you are very bored or somewhat medicated.<\/p>\n In other news, I hope you are well.\u201d<\/p>\n I replied:\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s fucking hysterical. I was concerned at the beginning because a writer I admire\u00a0failed to make a funny Trump book work. \u00a0There was too much hatred. I think what you got exactly right and why it works so well is the tone. \u00a0The form of the narrative. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t seem to comment while delivering hundreds of brilliant back handers. \u00a0It\u2019s a kind of naive narrative \u201cOh and then this happened\u201d as if it were all perfectly normal. \u00a0For instance when we find out they haven\u2019t yet left port. \u00a0Both the metaphor and the story play perfectly together. You manage to conceal every gag, which means for example, when you deliver the daughter gag, we hadn\u2019t actually seen it coming. \u00a0The first essential with comedy. I laughed out loud so frequently I was amazed because I\u2019m not that easy to make laugh out loud.<\/p>\n Hotel World is divided into five sections. The first section, \u201cPast\u201d tells the story of Sara Wilby\u00a0 The second part, “Present Historic”, is about a homeless girl (Else) begging for money outside the Hotel. The \u201cFuture Conditional\u201d, the third section of the novel, Lise, a receptionist. The fourth part is \u201cPerfect\u201d with its far from perfect character Penny. The fifth section of the novel titled \u201cFuture in the Past,\u201d is entirely Clare\u2019s memories on the life and death of her sister Sara. \u201cPresent\u201d is the title of the last part of the novel.<\/p>\n is a 2001\u00a0novel<\/a>\u00a0by British author\u00a0John le Carr\u00e9<\/a>. The novel tells the story of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose\u00a0activist<\/a>\u00a0wife is murdered. Believing there is something behind the murder, he seeks to uncover the truth and finds an international\u00a0conspiracy<\/a>\u00a0of corrupt bureaucracy and pharmaceutical money. The plot was based on a\u00a0real-life case in Kano, Nigeria<\/a>. The book was later adapted into a\u00a0feature film<\/a>\u00a0in 2005.<\/p>\n Instantly addictive.\u00a0 Binge novel reading.\u00a0 I downloaded the next on Kindle.\u00a0 I needed it now. She writes about the killing in the same low key uncommitted way she does about everything.\u00a0\u00a0 Brilliant.\u00a0\u00a0 Only now and again she lets Ripley\u2019s underlying hysteria and madness bubble through, like a barely controlled manic episode.\u00a0 In this he has a French wife and lives just beyond Orly.\u00a0 She repeats her themes of killing and impersonating here, with a twist, when Tom disguises himself as a dead painter, whose work they have been forging, with the legend he is in Mexico. An American collector suspect his is a forgery.\u00a0 Actually they are all forgeries.\u00a0\u00a0 The painter makes an assault on Tom.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a whole second story about the German fence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December Agent Running in the Field\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Le Carr\u00e9 Interestingly he seems to be writing a corrective to Nick Herron\u2019s Slough House series\u2026also it seems to be about the agent runner being seduced.\u00a0\u00a0 One might say penetrated.\u00a0 But hard to tell so far. The Two Faces of January\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Patricia Highsmith So often her novels concern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Those Who Walk Away\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Patricia Highsmith<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Only Life\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ash Carter and Sam Kashner<\/h2>\n
Talking to Strangers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Malcolm Gladwell<\/h2>\n
Grand Union\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Zadie Smith.<\/h2>\n
Maigret\u2019s Patience\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/h2>\n
The Madman of Bergerac \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/h2>\n
November<\/u><\/h1>\n
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ali Smith.<\/h2>\n
Pity The Reader\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Kurt Vonnegut & Suzanne McConnell<\/h2>\n
Dark Places\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gillian Flynn<\/h2>\n
A Small Town\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas Perry<\/h2>\n
Everything happens\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jo Perry<\/h2>\n
Queen Lucia. Part 1.\u00a0 Make Way for Lucia.\u00a0 E.F. Benson<\/h2>\n
Camino Island\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Grisham<\/h2>\n
October<\/u><\/h1>\n
The Library Book\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Susan Orlean<\/h2>\n
Maigret\u2019s Anger\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/h2>\n
The Captain and the Glory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dave Eggers<\/h2>\n
Quichotte\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Salman Rushdie<\/h2>\n
Offshore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Penelope Fitzgerald<\/h2>\n
Joe Country\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mick Herron<\/h2>\n
The Beginning of Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Penelope Fitzgerald.<\/h2>\n
July thru September<\/u><\/h1>\n
My Purple Scented Novel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ian McEwan<\/h2>\n
Hapgood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tom Stoppard<\/h2>\n
Jean de Florette\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Manon Les Sources.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marcel Pagnon.<\/h2>\n
Written on the Body\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jeanette Winterson<\/h2>\n
City of Light, City of Poison\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Holly Tucker<\/h2>\n
The Cartel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don Winslow.<\/h2>\n
White Teeth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Zadie Smith<\/h2>\n
Ravelstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saul Bellow<\/h2>\n
The Smiley Trilogy.<\/u><\/h2>\n
The Unsteady Captain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dave Eggers<\/h2>\n
Hotel World. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ali Smith<\/h2>\n
The Constant Gardener\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Le Carr\u00e9<\/h2>\n
Ripley Underground\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Patricia Highsmith<\/h2>\n