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Harkaway (LeCarre's son in real life) is faithful to his father's characters and plotting style. What's different is his greater clarity in providing description and exposition, whereas the originals were intentionally more like sideway glances in an alley, obscure and murky, requiring the reader, like the actors, to piece things together not just from clues but from terse linguistic fragments.

The field man's tale, from country to country and source to source, has the characteristics of a picaresque, a word I remember learning in a FreshmanxxxxxxxxFirst-Year English seminar in college.

It's been a couple hundred pages since we last recalled what the hell any of this S.E. Asian wandering-around has to do with Smiley and Karla. Good personality portrait of the field man, though.

Giving this one another go. The opening chapter is positively wacky, with the colorful description of the jaded, curmudgeonly foreign correspondents from a bygone era. Research expert Connie Sachs' reintroduction in Chapter 3 is itself worth the rereading; what an amazing, fully drawn character. RIP John le Carré.

The latest of the memoirs I've been reading by medium-famous indie rockers, including Amanda Palmer's "The Art of Asking" and Storm Large's "Crazy Enough", Folds' book has revealing stories of his zigzag educational missteps and ill-advised "cheap lessons" (keyword: lederhosen) in the years until Nirvana blew up the music industry, allowing for the Ben Folds Five (a trio!) and its unlikely frontman to punch through.

Cherished notions about traditional baseball stats on bubblegum cards debunked. So far, so good. I just wonder if those who loosen the MLB salary pursestrings - thinking in particular of arbitrators under the CBA - will agree to ignore Wins, Saves, and Batting Averages as misinformative when setting contract figures.

Sorry to say, I needed the stunning visuals and stark portrayals of the television series in order to get into the book. Now it's somehow clicked, and I'm good to go.

Such vivid prose - it's a miniseries!

I was fascinated with the 2005 movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. The book is as good or better, so far.

The interrogation scene two-thirds of the way through this suspense novel set in 1963 Dublin was hard to stomach. If I'd wanted a Mel Gibson movie, I would have gone to a Mel Gibson movie.

Most of these baseball stories were known to me. The interesting part is how NPR presents them for a general audience.

A blurb on Martin Cruz Smith's Polar Star said, "Nobody delivers up a corpse like Martin Cruz Smith." Ian Rankin, however, is in the running.

Rereading for the first time since high school. It's all coming back.

I'm not sure I'm old enough to be reading this brilliant rocker's life story, but in for a penny...

Much of Amanda Palmer's life story, from her residence at the Cloud Club to her music projects, is familiar to me as a fan of her Dresden Dolls band. From that perspective, this book is, so far, deepening rather than broadening my understanding of her music and creative influences.

Such colorful description of people in a place, I have rarely read.

Finish line in sight - easy book but it seems like it's been a marathon. Probably just me.