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| This is not the version I have. I just like tigers. |
We chose this book back in the comments of this post when we decided to do four shared books this year -- this is our third (the others were The Sandman #1-20 and On Beauty). I diverted from our normal numbering scheme because I have not quite finished my #6 (finally fell behind with Roald Dahl) and you're on #8. So I've called it "Joint Book #3," as you can see.
So... why this book? Well, my grandfather was a big reader. Like... stacks of books all over the house, all the time (sound familiar?) I never saw him without a book tucked under his arm or by his side. He read all kinds of books (as you'll recall, Tess was one of his favorites) but he loved the spy/thriller/mystery genre most of all... and John le Carré was at the top of that list. This is not a genre I usually (or ever) read, but since it was on that original Top 100 list, this has gotta be one of the good ones.
It's set in 1991, which means... pre-easy-access-Internet and pre-mobile-phones-everywhere. I look forward to how they perform their spy antics without those forms of communication!
Discussion Schedule
Here's our schedule for reading and discussing the book -- the first three are Skype dates and the final one is in person. (Yay!)- July 24: Chapters 1-8
- July 31: Chapters 9-16
- Aug 7 (maybe push to Monday, Aug 10? We'll talk.): Chapters 17-24
- Aug 14: Chapters 25-31
Some Random Facts
"John le Carré" is a pen name. Before becoming an author, he worked for British Intelligence and The Night Manager was his first "post-Cold War" novel. He's got a pretty terrific "About" page on his site -- check it out.The Night Manager going to be made into a miniseries in 2016. It got green lit in January 2015, so I'm pretty sure they saw it on our blog and thought it was a good idea -- why else would they dig up a 22 year old book to make into a new miniseries, right? Heh.
This might explain why you were unable to find a copy of it -- they're probably phasing out old versions and will soon be selling new ones with the actors on the cover (doesn't explain the lack of Kindle version, though...)
Speaking of the cover -- I wish I had the tiger version pictured above. But mine looks like this.
All right! Let's get reading -- are you a regular spy novel reader? I think this is my very first!
love,
kelly
K,
ReplyDeleteI'm super glad you posted that picture! It's so weird to have a book without a dust jacket. I mean, I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover---but it's still nice to have one. The other weird thing about that is that I wasn't able to read the plot synopsis/hook. So I started that sucker stone cold! Also a weird experience.
Looking forward to our chat tomorrow!
J
PS. I have spy novels I do like a lot, actually. The Cold War era ones are super fun to read. But now so many of them just read like crazy Republican propaganda that it's hard for me to take seriously. Oh, is it about terrorist Muslims? Fantastic. /eye roll.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this will speak a resurgence of spy novel interest. I also like spy movies, which almost always fall into the "handsome man blows things up" genre that I so enjoy. Although, did you see the movie SPY, with Melissa McCarthy? It was HILARIOUS.