©Ula Soltys
Books by Nick Harkaway
Nick Harkaway is the author of eight novels including The Gone-Away World, Gnomon and Titanium Noir as well as the George Smiley story Karla’s Choice. Two of his novels – The Price You Pay and Seven Demons – were written under the pseudonym Aidan Truhen. Harkaway’s real name is Nicholas Cornwell and he is the fourth son of the David Cornwell (who wrote as John le Carré) and his second wife Jane Cornwell.
“I was absolutely blown away with how well Harkaway has written this book…it’s incredible. He really has kept that style of his father’s. Just meeting again the characters from the Circus—Toby Esterhase, Peter Guillam, Control, as well as new characters that he’s brought in. It’s a real revelation. This is the book of the year for me, he’s knocked it out of the park.” Read more...
“One of my favourite things about Gnomon is its structure: it starts off as a murder mystery set in a very-near-future England, ruled by an AI which runs a panopticon. A lot of social problems have been ‘solved’ – so this is a utopia, which is also actually a dystopia. But from the point of view of the character that we first meet, who is a cop, this is a utopia. This woman is given the task of investigating a suspicious death. This death also takes a science fictional form, because one of the technologies that this society has is invasive mind reading – enabled through technology, not magic – used as a tool of interrogation” Read more...
Vajra Chandrasekera, Novelist
Interviews with Nick Harkaway
The Best John le Carré Books, selected by Nick Harkaway
John le Carré—often credited as the best spy novelist of all time—wrote 26 books over the course of his career. We asked Nick Harkaway, his son and the author of Karla’s Choice (the best spy thriller of 2024, according to our interview with spy book expert Shane Whaley), to select the five best John le Carré novels: from the Cold War espionage stories that made his name to more contemporary thrillers set in a world of international crime syndicates.
The best books on Negotiating the Digital Age, recommended by Nick Harkaway
The challenges – and opportunities – of our times have never been greater. Everything from our models of political participation to the very architecture of our brains is at stake, says the novelist and technology blogger Nick Harkaway.
Interviews where books by Nick Harkaway were recommended
The Best Science Fantasy, recommended by Vajra Chandrasekera
We use ‘science fantasy’ when a book seems to be both science fiction and fantasy. What distinguishes the two, and what does it mean to combine them? These books are an opportunity to explore our ways of knowing, reflect changing cultures, and find humour in the unexpected, says award-winning fantasy and sci fi author Vajra Chandrasekera.
The Best Spy Novels of 2024, recommended by Shane Whaley
From a novel about the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba to the latest John le Carré novel, from a Mossad agent in London to the hunt for a traitor at CIA HQ in Virginia, Shane Whaley, host of Spybrary—the podcast for lovers of spy books—talks us through his best spy novels of 2024.
