A Delicate Truth by John le Carré

John le Carré’s best work is populated by memorable villains. His greatest achievement, the three Cold War espionage novels that begin with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) and conclude with The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979), possess such a potent antagonist that…

Stephen Amidon

The Sunday TimesPublished: 10 March 2013Fiction

Tash Aw would seem to be just the novelist to dramatise the experience of the growing legion of immigrants in contemporary Shanghai, that chaotic, constantly evolving metropolis that is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most cosmopolitan and seductive cities. Born in Taiwan, raised in…

Filming began yesterday in Italy on a movie version of Stephen Amidon’s “Human Capital.” Paolo Virzi (“The First Beautiful Thing”) is directing Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Valeria Golino and Giovanni Anzaldo in the leading roles.

Jonathan Yardley chose the novel as one of his five favorites for 2004 (I loved it too, writing then for the Christian Science Monitor). But there’s something surprising about seeing this quintessentially American tragedy of suburban aspiration moved to Old World Europe…[READ THE FULL ARTICLE]

With his four previous short-story collections, most notably his astonishing debut CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996), George Saunders has established himself as one of America’s most admired authors, garnering praise from the likes of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, while also…

TC Boyle’s 14th novel is set on the tiny California island of San Miguel, a windswept, unforgiving place that feels as if it…

For more than 50 years, Tom Wolfe has been one of America’s most provocative and influential writers, a white-suited knight tilting against the trendy orthodoxies of the day. Modern art, contemporary fiction, celebrity culture — few institutions have escaped the sting of Wolfe’s razor…

More than half a century after its publication, On the Road is finally pulling into the ­cinema. Jack Kerouac’s hugely popular novel about America’s beat generation was optioned by Francis Ford Coppola in 1968, but had so many false starts, ­Hollywood insiders began to doubt that it…

In Christopher Buckley’s latest satirical novel, Walter “Bird” McIntyre, an affable American defence-industry lobbyist, is hired by an arms manufacturer to sully China’s public image, thereby creating the bellicose environment in which the firm can sell Washington secret technology…

Journey’s End starts on BBC2 on August 24 …Stephen Amidon offers a pocket guide to Ford Madox Ford…

The History of Going For Gold