
A Private Spy
The Letters of John le Carré
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Narrated by:
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David Harewood
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Florence Pugh
About this listen
An archive of letters written by the late John le Carré, giving listeners access to the intimate thoughts of one of the greatest writers of our time
The never-before-seen correspondence of John le Carré, one of the most important novelists of our generation, is collected in this beautiful volume. During his lifetime, le Carré wrote numerous letters to writers, spies, politicians, artists, actors and public figures. This collection is a treasure trove, revealing the late author's humor, generosity, and wit—a side of him many listeners have not previously seen.
©2022 John Le Carre, David Cornwell, Tim Cornwell (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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John le Carré Value Collection
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Night Manager: Enter the new world of post-Cold War espionage. Penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers and drug smugglers who have risen to unthinkable power and wealth. Our Game: With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress, Emma.... Tailor of Panama: Le Carre's Panama is a Casablanca without heroes, a hotbed of drugs, laundered money and corruption. It is also the country which on December 31, 1999, will gain full control of the Panama Canal.
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you want to know what I think?
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Good book. Get the Michael Jayston version instead
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Save Time and Listen. Don't read
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Le Carre's Panama is a Casablanca without heroes, a hotbed of drugs, laundered money and corruption. It is also the country which on December 31, 1999, will gain full control of the Panama Canal.
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Not one of Le Carré's best
- By S. Wilson on 03-31-18
By: John le Carré
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The Secret Life of John le Carre
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Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. “Now that he is dead,” Sisman writes, “we can know him better.”
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Espionage. Blackmail. Revenge. Cunning. Slapstick. State secrets dating back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. All this and more in a tight package of five novellas by Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger-winning author of Slow Horses.
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More Please
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Agatha Christie
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Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
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A delight and a revelation
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One of the most enjoyable audiobooks I've heard.
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- Unabridged
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During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.
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I learned much about Buckminster Fuller!
- By Richard J. Chandler on 09-12-22
By: Alec Nevala-Lee
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Bartleby and Me
- Reflections of an Old Scrivener
- By: Gay Talese
- Narrated by: Mike Ortego
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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“New York is a city of things unnoticed,” a young reporter named Gay Talese wrote sixty years ago. He would spend the rest of his legendary career defying that statement by celebrating the people most reporters overlooked, understanding that it was through these minor characters that the epic story of New York and America unfolded. Inspired by Herman Melville’s great short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” Talese now revisits the unforgettable “nobodies” he has profiled in his celebrated career—from the New York Times’s anonymous obituary writer to Frank Sinatra’s entourage.
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Wonderful meandering
- By nyc2cents on 11-01-23
By: Gay Talese
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The Liars' Club
- A Memoir
- By: Mary Karr
- Narrated by: Mary Karr
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all.
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Awful narration
- By JG, Shreveport, LA on 12-10-23
By: Mary Karr
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Out of the Darkness
- The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Aaron Rodgers is among the two or three most talented players to ever hold the most important job in American team sports–quarterback. He also stands as the most mysterious and polarizing figure in the modern-day national pastime that is professional football. From his controversial Covid stance to his methods of spiritual awakening to his estrangement from his family to his high-profile romances to his devastating Achilles injury a mere four plays into his New York Jets career, Rodgers has long dominated the NFL’s news cycle.
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Author seems clueless as to what draws a lot of people to Aaron
- By Amy on 09-12-24
By: Ian O'Connor
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The Ship Beneath the Ice
- The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance
- By: Mensun Bound
- Narrated by: Mensun Bound - preface, Charles Armstrong
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 21, 1914, after sailing more than ten thousand miles from Norway to the Antarctic Ocean, the Endurance finally succumbed to the surrounding ice. Ernest Shackleton and his crew had navigated the 144-foot, three-masted wooden vessel to Antarctica to become the first to cross the barren continent, but early season pack ice trapped them in place offshore. They watched in silence as the ship’s stern rose twenty feet in the air and disappeared into the frigid sea, then spent six harrowing months marooned on the ice in its wake.
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Dragged out story
- By Bill on 09-14-23
By: Mensun Bound
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When the World Didn't End
- A Memoir
- By: Guinevere Turner
- Narrated by: Guinevere Turner
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In this immersive, spell-binding memoir, an acclaimed screenwriter tells the story of her childhood growing up with the infamous Lyman Family cult—and the complicated and unexpected pain of leaving the only home she’d ever known.
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Boring
- By Jes on 06-15-23
By: Guinevere Turner
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The Watchmaker's Daughter
- The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The Watchmaker’s Daughter is one of the greatest stories of World War II that listeners haven’t heard: the remarkable and inspiring life story of Corrie ten Boom—a groundbreaking, female Dutch watchmaker, whose family unselfishly transformed their house into a hiding place straight out of a spy novel to shelter Jews and refugees from the Nazis during Gestapo raids. Even though the Nazis knew what the ten Booms were up to, they were never able to find those sheltered within the house when they raided it.
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Good effort!
- By Michele on 03-07-23
By: Larry Loftis
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They Called Us Exceptional
- And Other Lies That Raised Us
- By: Prachi Gupta
- Narrated by: Prachi Gupta
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Prachi Gupta’s family embodied the American Dream: a doctor father and a nurturing mother who raised two high-achieving children with one foot in the Indian American community, the other in Pennsylvania’s white suburbia. But their belonging was predicated on a powerful myth: that Asian Americans have perfected the alchemy of middle-class life, raising tight-knit, ambitious families that are immune to hardship.
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Good good
- By Wild on 08-29-23
By: Prachi Gupta
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Candace Pert
- Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science
- By: Pamela Ryckman
- Narrated by: Jess Nahikian, Pamela Ryckman
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Candace Pert stood at the dawn of three revolutions: the women’s movement, integrative health, and psychopharmacology. A scientific prodigy, she was 30 years ahead of her time, preaching a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to healthcare and medicine long before yoga hit the mainstream and “wellness” took root in our vernacular. Her bestselling book Molecules of Emotion made her the mother of the Mind/Body Revolution, launching a paradigm shift in medicine. Deepak Chopra credits her with creating his career, and he said as much in his eulogy at her funeral.
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Fascinating and important story!
- By Suzanne Duvalsaint on 11-16-23
By: Pamela Ryckman
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Empireland
- How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain
- By: Sathnam Sanghera, Marlon James - foreword
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala, Marlon James
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism. Empire—whether British or otherwise—informs nearly everything we do.
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Important history
- By Maggie A. on 07-02-23
By: Sathnam Sanghera, and others
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Patton's Payback
- The Battle of El Guettar and General Patton's Rise to Glory
- By: Stephen L. Moore
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 1943, in their first fight with the Germans, American soldiers in North Africa were pushed back 50 miles by Rommel’s Afrika Korps and nearly annihilated. Only the German decision not to pursue them allowed the Americans to maintain a foothold in the area. General Eisenhower, the supreme commander, knew he needed a new leader on the ground, one who could raise the severely damaged morale of his troops. He handed the job to a new man: Lieutenant General George Patton.
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Very educational
- By Mark Mears on 10-01-23
By: Stephen L. Moore
What listeners say about A Private Spy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sally T. Warthen
- 03-18-25
Life story from a master storyteller.
I have never cared for John le Carre’s spy novels, but I found this collection of his letters irresistible. His warm friendships and intelligent commentary on world affairs accompany the story of his life and work, all presented by a virtuous wordsmith.
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- LGLH
- 05-05-23
Letters As Interesting As His Books
A correspondence that reveals a complicated man whose life from childhood on was as layered as an onion. Harewood and Pugh do a terrific job, with his interpretation maintaining a credible tone that adds enormously to the book's mood and her dating and occasional input providing emphasis points that keep the thread comprehensible. Particularly interesting, I think, for writers, as he offers not only tidbits of advice re the craft throughout but also provides an excellent example of how to function as a highly successful author.
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- Pamela
- 12-21-22
Quiet, Dignified, & Articulate
I really felt I was peering over the shoulder of le Carré. These letters shine a light into the thoughts of an author I have treasured for decades (as is substantiated by my bookshelves.) I don’t care to know about the “messiness” of his private life, as he describes it, and I am well aware of the limitations he honored regarding his career with MI-6. I am interested in what interested him, what gave him joy, how he felt about his books and career. A Private Spy gives me all that and more. It is a tribute and one well earned.
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2 people found this helpful
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- R. Miklich
- 03-06-24
A wonderful poignant insight to a remarkable man.
I love and have read many of his novels but this collection of his letters brings into focus the inner brilliance of the man. Pity some many of his letters were lost but this collection is a treasure for those who admire this man.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Dan
- 01-31-23
Truly engrossing from start to finish
Loved this book. David Harewood's reading was so convincing that I'd have sworn it was read by the author. I was never a fan of "spy vs spy" novels, but I've always loved "The letters of whomever" books. This did not disappoint. I recently enjoyed "The Leonard Bernstein Letters", a wonderful book, and "A Private Spy" was equally delightful. I am puzzled by one thing, tho'. With the accent on the last syllable of Carre', I always seemed to hear Ka'-ray. Go figure. While I'm sure Audible would prefer we not get political, I must say that what was said about our former president will endear Carre' to me forever.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Tom Greaves - gmail
- 10-31-23
Compelling listen with some annoying flaws
I finished it and was happy to spend the time with a favorite author.
Would someone please teach David Harewood how to pronounce et cetera? His rendering grated on me. My dread was not relieved until the book ended.
The insistence on reading the same addresses over and over wore me down. Could we not abbreviate to Tregiffian, Cornwall or Gainsborough Gardens, London?
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2 people found this helpful
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- William B. Manion
- 02-10-23
Increased appreciation for the author
As a fan of spy genre, I appreciated much but not all of his work. But after this book of his letters, an amazing, candid look at the real human behind the writings, my appreciation jumped from 75% to 95% plus. A real person, not a character from entitled aristocracy playing with people’s lives. Puts a human perspective on historical events.
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- Reckoning
- 12-29-22
Loved, but I’m a big fan
I loved collection of gorgeous, mellifluous British prose. David Cornwell is a letter writer’s letter writer. If you are like me—a geeky, literary Anglophile—you will adore it.
I’d advise casual readers of it le Carré‘s work to read more of them. But if you are an especial deep-dive fan, get this book and savor.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Christian M. Talbot
- 02-21-23
Wonderful coda to le Carré’s novels
If you’re a fan of le Carré’s novels, then you will love this inside look at his private life.
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- Marion
- 01-18-23
Terrible narrator
Reading David Cornwell's youthful letters, the narrator sounds 200 years old. After that, he just sounds sort of dumpy and unshaven. (Michael Jayston was the perfect narrator for LeCarre's books, as good as LeCarre himself.) I couldn't get past the first couple of hours, so it will have to be the print edition for me.
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1 person found this helpful