Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

A Private Spy

By: John le Carré
Narrated by: David Harewood, Florence Pugh
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

John le Carré was a defining writer of his time. From The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which changed our understanding of the secret agent from guns and Martinis to shadows and moral ambiguity, to Agent Running in the Field, in which modern Britain is mired in political corruption, he catalogued our sins and recounted the journey of the Anglosphere into the twenty-first century. In these letters, le Carre´ reveals himself to be a consummate correspondent as well as a master novelist.

A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carre´'s own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the 'chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live.

At the heart of the collection is le Carre´ the writer: researching, creating and editing, engaging with readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, with politicians and public figures. We find le Carré writing to Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. In A Private Spy what emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 The Estate of John le Carré (P)2022 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

John Le Carré in His Own Words cover art
Good Things Out of Nazareth cover art
Confessions cover art
Ruskin Park cover art
Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoyevsky to His Family and Friends cover art
Based on a True Story cover art
Creating Anna Karenina cover art
The Gifts of Reading cover art
Haywire cover art
Capote cover art
The Leonard Bernstein Letters cover art
Life, Love and The Archers cover art
The Man with the Golden Typewriter cover art
Elizabeth Jane Howard cover art
Wainwright: The Biography cover art
The Year of the End cover art

Critic reviews

Each letter from John le Carré was a beautifully written miniature essay ... fascinating (Ben Macintyre)
A Private Spy testifies to le Carré's universally acknowledged gifts as a raconteur, mimic and caricaturist (Robert Potts)
Unsurprisingly, he was a brilliant correspondent. Revelations tumble out...These engaging letters are edited with great fairness and sensitivity by a family member, his son Tim Cornwell (Andrew Lycett)

What listeners say about A Private Spy

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    20
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An extraordinary life in letters

I’ve enjoyed all of le Carre’s books and his wonderful ‘An evening with George Smiley’ at the Royal Festival Hall some years ago. This is a wonderful and eclectic selection of letters mapping a full and long life. Most prominent is his sense of humour, his oblique look at the world, his valued and varied friendships and an insight to the career of an author so long at the peak of his craft and yet still self effacing and lacking in pretensions. This Audible version is beautifully read and an absolute pleasure - I recommend it highly.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An amazing listen

An amazing selection of letters by his son Tim. They give so much colour to many facets of Le Carre’s / Cornwell’s life and writings. Beautifully read by David Harewood and Florence Pugh. Thoroughly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!