The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life: A Life In Writing - Softcover

Carr�, John Le

4.06

6,139 ratings by Goodreads

9780241976876: The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life: A Life In Writing

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241976871 ISBN 13: 9780241976876

Publisher: Viking, 2016

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

'Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I'm sitting now.'

The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carr�'s memoir and his first work of non-fiction, is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women, who inspired some of his most enthralling novels - and a testament to the author's extraordinary engagement with the last half-century. The reader is swept along not just by the chilling winds of the Cold War or by the author's frightening journeys into places of terrible violence but, most importantly, by the author's inimitable voice. In this astonishing work we see our world, both public and private, through the eyes of one of this country's greatest writers.

'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times' Guardian

'John le Carr� is as recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen' Financial Times

'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carr� ... they were a journey into the wider world ... These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Fascinating, important, pithy. Anyone interested in le Carr� and his significant contribution to the literature of the 20th and 21st centuries will want to read these engaging meanderings through his life and career.He has plenty to say about Kim Philby, the movie business, fellow spooks and Russian defectors, encounters with the great and good, and his intrepid travels to research his novels (William Boyd Guardian)

Vintage le Carr� ... [he] remains a magician of plot and counter-plot, a master storyteller (Observer)

John le Carr� is as recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen (Financial Times)

When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carr� ... they were a journey into the wider world ... These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind (Aung San Suu Kyi)

No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times (Guardian)

A smashing read (Richard Davenport-Hines Wall Street Journal)

Offers thrills of recognition as le Carr�'s archetypes spring to life... The 84-year old novelist discards extended narrative and writes in elegiac fragments with linking harmonies, like the late works of that other German Romantic, Beethoven (John Gapper Financial Times)

Exceptionally well-turned and enjoyable (David Sexton Evening Standard)

Grippingly written, it is revealing in ways the author never intended it to be (Sunday Telegraph)

Cagey, clever, revealing (Daily Telegraph)

From the Author:

John le Carr� was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. His recent novels include A Most Wanted Man, Our Kind of Traitor and A Delicate Truth.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.