I have read all the Robert Ludlum's books. I think he is awesome. Even the books written by other authors with his storylines are wonderful reads too. I just read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. It is not a spy novel but you can't put it down. The other really good one I read for a Book Club is "This is where I leave you" by Jonathan Trooper. It is interesting and another one you just don't want to put down. I highly recommend them all. I could go on and on because I read all the time but I have to stop somewhere.

Some Spooks fans might like autobiographies: at the moment I am reading Blood on my hands: a surgeon at war by Craig Jurisevic. Craig is a surgeon from Adelaide, and has worked in conflict zones: Israel and Gaza; Albania and Kosovo; East Timor and Afghanistan. Blood on my hands is about Craig's experiences in Kosovo in 1999.

I'm also awaiting the arrival of my copy of Our kind of traitor, the latest book by John Le Carre.

Jurisevic's book is fantastic, I also highly recommend. Nice to find someone else loving it!

One series of books I haven't seen mentioned here are the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich, they're really contemporary, very funny stories about a bounty hunter set in New Jersey. Hysterically funny in places.

I have read all of Janet Evanovich's books too. They are ridiculously funny. I was on an airplane while reading one of them and had to clap my hand over my mouth to stop laughing so loud! I have recommended them to tons of people and everyone has become a fan. Need something light and funny...these re for you.

Jane Austin - just read Persuasion in a day. Am now looking for a copy that BBC did staring Rupert Penry-Jones in it.

(01-10-2010 03:04 PM)Obsession Wrote:  Jane Austin - just read Persuasion in a day. Am now looking for a copy that BBC did staring Rupert Penry-Jones in it.

This is one of my favorite books. Certainly my favorite Jane Austen. I prefer the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds adaptation from the mid-90's. RPJ is lovely but the writing didn't do the role justice therefore RPJ is shamefully under-used. Just IMO.

I used to read a lot of classics. Besides JA, favorites are The Count of Monte Cristo, Moby Dick, North & South, Vanity Fair, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, Little Women, Nicholas Nickleby is my favorite Dickens closely followed by Bleak House and we own three, count 'em, three volumes of annotated Shakespeare plays.

And then there is my guilty penchant for utterly mindless historical/fantasy family saga fiction. The last I read was The Cloudmage series. I am working through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Series at the moment.

I'm re-reading John le Carre's Karla trilogy in anticipation of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy movie. I'm beginning to wonder whether they based Harry loosely on George Smiley, as they have an awful lot in common. I still think these books are probably the most authentic spy novels ever written.

They are *so* great, I remember reading them as a teenager and falling in love. Your re-read is a bit early though - from memory the first film isn't due out for another year.

I'd probably put the best of Graham Greene in the same boat, mostly because I think Greene's books are also very attractive to those who don't have the 'spymania' that Churchill talked about.

I've heard that its good to read John Le Carre's novels in a particular order. Anyone have an idea of which book I should read first?

(04-10-2010 09:25 AM)Obsession Wrote:  I've heard that its good to read John Le Carre's novels in a particular order. Anyone have an idea of which book I should read first?

None at all! But I'm starting with The Spy Who Came in From The Cold. Seems appropriate what with the mentions in the DVD extras of Spooks getting back closer to a le Carre-esque style, Tower's last line in 9.8 and the possible red-herring of "Berlin Corners" by the writers. Gotta do something to feed the beast!

I'm loving it so far. Its the description of the peripheral characters that is really tickling me right now, such as the one I came across this morning: "The passport officer was a youngish little man with an Intelligence Corp tie and some mysterious badge in his lapel. He had a ginger mustache and a North Country accent which was his life's enemy." My theory is that the world built around the main characters is as important as the main characters. It doesn't take much. Two sentences and you know who this guy is.