John le carre biography audiobook

By Lizo Mzimba, entertainment correspondent

I only met John le Carré once. A brief chat on the red carpet at the premiere of the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 2011. A three-minute experience I'd been looking forward to for months.

I discovered his novels relatively late in life. My first was Tinker, Tailor, which I found so enthralling that at one point I was buying a new le Carré every week. I loved his style of storytelling - his ability to create vivid and believable characters in situations that may have been far from our own more mundane experiences, but which still felt utterly relatable.

So when a few years ago I was asked if I was interested in taking part in Celebrity Mastermind, I suggested as my specialist subject the author's George Smiley novels. Le Carré's complete body of work would have been a mammoth task. But the novels featuring his most famous and enduring creation seemed more manageable.

His Smiley books had always been my favourites.

So it was also a great and welcome reason to spend a few weeks revisiting some of the stories I'd enjoyed so much over the previous decade, from early work like A Murder of Quality (not a spy story at all - Smiley is asked to investigate a death at an exclusive public school) to later books like Smiley's People (where the spymaster goes into final battle against his Soviet nemesis Karla).

I luckily didn't embarrass myself on the show, only fluffing one question. And at the end of the programme I came a creditable second to the formidable crime writer Val McDermid.

On the red carpet, I do remember discussing with le Carré whether his best-known piece of work was Tinker, Tailor or The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. The rest is a bit of a blur.

In my job I'm lucky enough to meet a lot of famous, well-known figures, it's a routine part of the work we do. But unusually for weeks afterwards I remember being unable to stop myself endlessly telling friends and colleagues, with a huge smile and sense of pride, that I'd finally met the great John le Carré.