A S H Smyth › (Re)building a library

Skip to content

Tag Archives: John le Carré

(Re)building a library

Friday, May 21, 2021

Confessions of a bibliomaniac in the South Atlantic. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Alan Hollinghurst, Amazon, Angela Carter, Antarctica, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Antoine de St Exupéry, Bernard MacLaverty, Bernard Malamud, books, bookshopping, Brendan Whittington-Jones, Charing Cross Rd, charity shops, Charlotte McConaghy, Christopher Hitchens, Covid-19, Damon Runyan, Daniel Defoe, Dave Bentley, Don DeLillo, Flann O'Brien, FOPP, Freya Stark, Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Geoff Dyer, George Melly, Goethe, Google Maps, Gore Vidal, Graham Greene, Graham Swift, Harold Nicolson, Henry Kissinger, Ian Fleming, Jack Grimwood, James Clammer, James Hilton, James Joyce, James Kelman, James Meek, Jared Diamond, Jerome K Jerome, JG Ballard, JG Farrell, Jim Crace, John Julius Norwich, John Steinbeck, Joseph O'Connor, Jules Verne, Kurt Vonnegut, Laurence Sterne, libraries, Maria Stepanova, Michael Blencowe, Milan Kundera, Mordecai Richler, museums, Oxfam, Patricia Highsmith, Penelope Lively, Peter Høeg, Philip Roth, Rabelais, Richard Flanagan, Rupert Everett, Salman Rushdie, Schopenhauer, Seth Burkett, Shalom Auslander, Sri Lanka, The Critic, the Falklands, the Lonely Planet, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Keneally, Thomas Mann, TS Eliot, Umberto Eco, Uruguay, William Faulkner, William Golding, William Thackeray | Comments (0)

My daughter conjugates the verb ‘to spy’

Saturday, December 12, 2020

i.m. John le Carré (1931-2020) . I spy You spew He/she/Pierre Spies We (Graf) Spee You Spanx® They spunk .

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged daughters, Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee, Pierre Spies, sex, spies, underwear, verbs, vomit | Comments (0)

Spies like us?

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A less-than-Smiley response to John le Carré. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged books, George Smiley, lexicons, London, maps, memoir, MI5, MI6, Penguin, spies, The Oldie, walking | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 16, 2017

. Only about three in every hundred amateur novel-writers find their way into print, except at their own expense. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907 . The erection of a verandah is a useful way to extend one’s living quarters. Seven American states observe Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as a public holiday. There is only one […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, America, architecture, atheism, babies, Barack Obama, breasts, Britain, Chiang Kai-shek, China, Christianity, class, Comic Sans, Communism, crime, domestic affairs, education, Eskimos, finance, French, Germany, grammar, holidays, Judaism, Mormonism, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, religion, sharks, synthetic fibres, the Irish, the Soviet Union, translation, vision, war, writing | Comments (0)

An unsigned note

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Oldie readers will need no reminding that the heart of John le Carré’s ‘Circus’ – indeed, of his entire ouevre – is one George Smiley OBE. From Call for the Dead (in ’61) to the classic ‘Karla trilogy’, and on til (almost) the collapse of Communism, he battled foe and, sometimes, friend, quite often in […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Communism, George Smiley, illustration, London, maps, Mike Hall, Penguin, publishing, spies, The Oldie, Waterstone's | Comments (0)

theASHtray, vol.4

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Carry on up the hillbillies, the questionable merits of Aïda, and why the CIA employs so many jazz nerds. — For theartsdesk

Filed in column, Journalism | Also tagged Aïda, art, CIA, Egypt, Hamlet, Hieronymus Bosch, jazz, Kings of Leon, opera, plaid, radio, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, theartsdesk, Verdi | Comments (0)