Competition: Win a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Tie-in Book, T-Shirt, and More!

NB: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

As promised on Tuesday and Thursday, to round off the first working week of the new year I've something rather special for you this fine Friday – something I've never attempted on Existential Ennui before: a competition! Yes, to mark the general release in the US today of Tomas Alfredson's magnificent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie – adapted from John le Carré's 1974 spy novel classic – I'm offering two America-based readers the chance to win a bunch of tie-in swag, courtesy of the film's US distributor, Focus Features!

Now, I must stress that the competition is only open to US addressees – apologies to British readers of Existential Ennui (and to those elsewhere in the world), but I'm afraid it's out of my hands. (Perhaps I can rustle something up for Brits to mark the DVD release of Tinker Tailor... hint hint, Studiocanal...) However, two lucky American readers are in with a chance of winning the following incredible items: 

• A Movie Tie-in Book!

• A T-Shirt!

• A Voice Recorder Pen!

• A Post-it Note Cube!

That's a Movie Tie-in Book, a T-Shirt, a Voice Recorder Pen and a Post-it Note Cube each (prize value an unbelievable $43) for two US-based readers! Tremendously exciting stuff!

I'll explain how to enter in a moment, but before that, if you're not au fait with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the film, or indeed Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy the novel, both star John le Carré's iconic spymaster George Smiley – played by Gary Oldman in the movie – who's brought out of retirement to hunt down a mole, or enemy agent, at the heart of British Intelligence (colloquially known as "The Circus"). It's a beautifully elegiac tale of betrayal on both a geopolitical and human scale, and Alfredson's film is an excellent adaptation of the source novel and an extraordinary piece of cinema in its own right. You can read my review of the movie – which hit British cinemas back in September 2011 – here, and my review of le Carré's original masterwork – and its BBC TV adaptation – here . And here is Mr. le Carré himself, shedding a little light on the creation of George Smiley, with additional insight from Gary Oldman and others:

Splendid. So then: to business. And to be in with a chance of winning the book, the T-shirt, etc., answer the following question:

John le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the first instalment in what's known as the Karla Trilogy, or Quest for Karla; name the second and third novels in the trilogy.

If you're a fan of le Carré or a regular reader of Existential Ennui, answering that shouldn't present too much of a problem, but if you're struggling for the answer, you could always enter "Karla Trilogy" in the search box at the top of EE's right-hand sidebar. But don't let on that I told you that. (Moscow rules, dear boy.)

Answers should be emailed to me at:

existentialennui@gmail.com

using the subject line "Tinker Tailor". Don't forget to include your full name and address, and which T-shirt size you'd prefer, and once again, let me just state for the record that the competition is only open to "the Cousins" – i.e. American addressees – so entries from elsewhere in the world will be automatically discounted. The competition closes on Thursday 12 January at midnight EST, with all entries going into a hat (or similar receptacle), from which will be chosen at random two winners. And I'll be announcing those two winners on Existential Ennui a week today, so at least for two people, Friday the 13th will be quite lucky. Best of British to all of you, though.

Next week, it's back to my series of posts on spy fiction series, with a British espionage series featuring a state executioner... and I'll also have that promised review of Donald E. Westlake's debut crime novel The Mercenaries...

Westlake Score: The Mercenaries by Donald E. Westlake; Signed Association British First Edition (T.V. Boardman, 1961), Denis McLoughlin Cover Art

(NB: a version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker blog.)

After Tuesday's teaser-preview post on forthcoming delights on Existential Ennui, let's open my 2012 Violent World of Parker cross-post account with a very special Westlake Score...

This is the UK hardback first edition of Donald E. Westlake's The Mercenaries, published by T.V. Boardman as part of their American Bloodhound Mystery line (no. 347 in that line, to be precise) in 1961 – the year following the US Random House first edition – and it is a very rare thing indeed. I've only ever seen a couple of copies of this edition for sale online, neither of them possessing a dustjacket; to give you an idea of how short the supply of the Boardman edition of The Mercenaries is, there are currently zero copies of the Boardman first on AbeBooks.

There are a couple of reasons for the book's scarcity. The most obvious is that The Mercenaries was Westlake's debut novel – at least under his own name; he'd had a number of pseudonymous sleaze efforts published by this point – and is therefore much in demand in first, US or UK. But the Boardman edition of The Mercenaries is additionally collectible for a whole other reason: Denis McLoughlin. McLoughlin was the art director at Boardman (not to mention an accomplished comics artist), producing around 600 covers for the publisher's crime novel list, and his work, with its bold use of chiaroscuro/restricted palette/occasional collage elements, is highly sought after – I posted a gallery of his Westlake covers in 2010 (now updated with The Mercenaries). So that, combined with it being Westlake's first novel, is probably why the Boardman first of The Mercenaries is so elusive.

My copy was a Christmas present from my sister, who I pestered into buying the only Boardman copy on AbeBooks, which was being offered for sale by Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers of Seattle. But I didn't covet it simply because it's the UK first edition (although that would surely be reason enough); there was something even more special about this particular copy:

It's signed and inscribed by Westlake on the front endpaper, and dated in the year of publication. And if we take a closer look at the inscription:

It reads:

Byrne Reginald Spencer Fone Esq.,

Within, an Anglo-American Traveler,

Without, an odd bodkin.

Don

Wessel & Lieberman were a little unsure as to whether the inscription was actually by Westlake, but I asked my sister to take a punt on the book anyway (thank you, Alison), and once I had it in my sweaty palms, I compared the dedication to other Westlake signed books I own (see here and here). And I'm as certain as I can be that the inscription is the genuine article.

But who was/is Byrne Reginald Spencer Fone (who's also signed the endpaper – or rather jotted an ownership name on it)? Well, Fone is – I believe he's still with us – also a writer. He's perhaps best known for penning a number of gay and lesbian studies – Homophobia: A History; A Road to Stonewall – as well as a string of literary studies and, most recently, a number of novels, including American Revolution, "a political crime novel about a gay American president", according to Amazon. As to Fone's connection to Westlake, though, I'm afraid I'm in the dark there. Fone did teach at New York University in the early 1960s, so it's possible he taught Westlake. Then again, they could simply have been friends and contemporaries; as ever, if anyone can shed any light, do leave a comment.

Westlake was evidently proud of The Mercenaries – he sent inscribed copies of both the UK and US editions to a number of his friends and associates – and justifiably so: it's a solid debut, and a convincing portrayal of New York's criminal underworld. Certainly Hard Case Crime thought highly enough of it to reissue it a few years back, retitled as The Cutie. So for my next Violent World of Parker cross-post, I'll be reviewing the novel – something Violent World of Parker proprietor Trent's already done, of course, but you never know: I might find a new angle or two.

Back here on Existential Ennui, however, it's competition time – at least, for my American readers. Because tomorrow Tomas Alfredson's excellent movie adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy goes on general release in the US:

And to tie in with that, in a first for Existential Ennui, I'll be giving away two sets of movie swag, courtesy of the film's distributor, Focus Features. So join me again on Friday for an exclusive Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy competition!

Existential Ennui in 2012: a Competition, a Facebook Page, and a List of Authors

Good Lord, look at that: it's 3 January already. How did that happen? Seems like only yesterday I was slumped on the sofa, staring blankly at the telly and thinking to myself, "I really must write that preview of 2012 I promised I'd post early in the new year"... Oh, wait: it was yesterday. Hurm. Well anyway: happy new year, chums. And what a year it promises to be: mayoral elections in London, presidential elections in the States, the Olympic Games in Britain, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises at the cinema, and, if the Mayans are to be believed, the end of the world on 21 December.

Here on Existential Ennui, however, it'll be pretty much business as usual... with a few twists. For one thing, come the end of the week, I'll be posting Existential Ennui's very first competition, offering American readers (and only Americans; sorry, Brits) the chance to win a bunch of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy movie swag, to tie in with the general release of the film in the US – hence that image of Gary Oldman as George Smiley at the top of this post. You can read my glowing review of the film right here, and don't you dare forget to check back in on Friday for the competition. (Er, if you live in America.)

For another thing, Existential Ennui now has a Facebook page. Quite what I'll be doing with it now I've set it up is something I'm still pondering, but it exists, so you may as well, y'know, go "like" it – if, that is, you do indeed like Existential Ennui; if you don't, I'm afraid there's no "unlike" option, so you'll just have to make do with not "liking" it. As soon as I work out a way to install the "like" button on Existential Ennui itself (as in, the blog) without it appearing as a massive, unattractive, ungainly box that cuts into my sidebar, I'll be doing that, too. (UPDATE: I have now done that. Huzzah.)

All of that aside, though, blogging will continue in much the same vein as usual. You might have noticed that I've changed the sub-header of EE to "Crime and spy fiction, SF, book collecting, comics"; I figured it was about time I stated slightly more clearly what this blog is all about, and those, unsurprisingly, are the areas I'll be concentrating on over the coming months, not least via my ongoing series on espionage series (a series which was, you'll recall, interrupted by my end-of-year round-up posts). That said, there will still be room for posts on other literary matters, whether it be non-fiction, lit-fic, publishing, or whatever else happens to take my fancy.

So which authors can you expect to encounter on Existential Ennui this year? Well, in no particular order, keep 'em peeled for, among others, Dan J. Marlowe, Michael Gilbert, Edward S. Aarons, Ross Thomas, Desmond Cory, Tom Clancy, Patricia Highsmith, Kingsley Amis, Brian Garfield, Graham Greene, Gregory Mcdonald, Len Deighton, Michael Dibdin, Jeremy Duns, Adam Hall, Andrew York, Michael Frayn, Mike Ripley, John le Carré, Tom Wolfe, Kim Philby, George Pelecanos, Peter Rabe, P. M. Hubbard, and, of course, our old friend, Donald E. "Richard Stark" Westlake. And it's to Westlake that we turn first, with a really quite remarkable Christmas present-cum-Westlake Score...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 3: the 10 Best Books I Read This Year

And so we reach the grand finale of my not-as-drawn-out-as-last-year's effort-but-still-quite-long-enough-thank-you end-of-year round-up – not to mention also, not entirely coincidentally, my final post for the year; hang out the bunting, begin the ticker-tape parade, etc., etc. And having presented a Bloody Great List of all the books I read in 2011, to round the year off I'm going to choose my ten favourite books from that list. I bet you literally cannot contain your excitement.

As I did last year, I've once again opted for a top ten this time out, rather than a top twenty, a decision which has necessitated some hard choices. I could have easily filled getting on for half of the top ten with Anthony Price novels alone, but for the sake of variety I've limited myself instead to just one appearance per author in the chart. Mind you, there were still a number of authors who didn't quite make the cut but whose work I enjoyed immensely in 2011, and therefore honourable mentions must go to Jeremy Duns (Free Agent), Adam Hall (The Berlin Memorandum), Graham Greene (The Quiet American), Michael Dibdin (Ratking), Donald Hamilton (Death of a Citizen) and Elmore Leonard (Pronto).

This being Existential Ennui and not, I dunno, Shots or The Rap Sheet or Books and Writers or something, it almost goes without saying that the majority of the books in the final ten are, by definition, "old", i.e. first published at least thirty years ago in most cases. But there are a couple of more recent novels in there too, and as I've stated more than once before, although the remainder may be getting on a bit, to me they're as fresh and exciting and surprising as anything published in 2011 – more so in most cases.

So which of the forty-eight books I read in 2011 made the top ten? Let's find out, shall we, by way of a visual guide, counting 'em down in reverse order, with links to whatever nonsense I wrote about each book (if indeed I have written anything yet). Drum roll, please!

10.

SS-GB (1978) by Len Deighton

9.

The Cut (2011) by George Pelecanos

8.

When Will There be Good News? (2008) by Kate Atkinson

7.

A Hive of Glass (1965) by P. M. Hubbard

6.

The Fools in Town are on Our Side (1970) by Ross Thomas

5.

Smiley's People (1979) by John le Carré

4.

Butcher's Moon (1974) by Richard Stark

3.

Undertow (1962) by Desmond Cory

2.

The Alamut Ambush (1971) by Anthony Price

1.

Operation Overkill (1962) by Dan J. Marlowe

Well, one or two surprises there, I feel, especially the books at numbers 3 and 1; suffice it to say that, although they haven't yet featured on Existential Ennui, Desmond Cory and Dan J. Marlowe will be making appearances on this blog very soon indeed. As for the rest, I don't have much to add to my original reviews, except in the cases of George Pelecanos's The Cut, where I haven't yet written a review – there'll be one in the new year – and Kate Atkinson's When Will There be Good News?, which I somehow neglected to review. So let me just quickly note that, while I love all four of Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels, I think this one is my favourite, packing, as it does, a real emotional punch and featuring a completely unexpected central disaster. Utterly sublime.

And that's yer lot for 2011. Have a terrific New Year's Eve, and do join me again early in 2012, when I'll be posting a preview of forthcoming delights here on Existential Ennui...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 2: a Bloody Great List

Welcome back. And with Christmas done and dusted – I do hope yours was bearable – it's back to the year-end round-up here on Existential Ennui. When last we met, I'd posted an introspective overview of Existential Ennui's highlights in 2011 – the word "highlights" there being an entirely subjective and debatable piece of nomenclature. But of course, all that books blogging couldn't really have taken place without my having read a book or two over the course of the year, and so, much as I did last year, today I'm presenting a Bloody Great List of all the books I read in 2011, in roughly the order I read them. Except this year there's a twist: in each instance I've also linked to whatever piffle I posted about that particular book – unless it's a book I haven't yet blogged about, in which case, I, er, haven't. Exciting stuff, and no mistake. Let's take a look, shall we?

Pronto by Elmore Leonard
Killing Floor by Lee Child
The Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas)
Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard
When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard
Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham
Free Agent by Jeremy Duns
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Only Girl in the Game by John D. MacDonald
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
The Wanderers by Richard Price
The Fools in Town are On Our Side by Ross Thomas
Anarchaos by Curt Clark (Donald E. Westlake)
The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price
A Hive of Glass by P. M. Hubbard
The Alamut Ambush by Anthony Price
Colonel Butler's Wolf by Anthony Price
When Will There be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Isle of 100,000 Graves by Jason / Fabien Vehlmann
The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
The Berlin Memorandum by Adam Hall
October Men by Anthony Price
Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark
Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay
Dead Skip by Joe Gores
Smiley's People by John le Carré
Blame the Dead by Gavin Lyall
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas
SS-GB by Len Deighton
Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton
The Eliminator by Andrew York
The Cataclysm by R. C. Sherriff
Day of Misjudgment by Bernard Maclaren
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Only Lovers Left Alive by Dave Wallis
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Butcher's Moon by Richard Stark
The Cold Dark Night by Sarah Gainham
Operation Overkill by Dan J. Marlowe
Slow Burner by William Haggard
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Undertow by Desmond Cory
The Mercenaries by Donald E. Westlake
The Cut by George Pelecanos

The first thing to note, I suppose, is the overall total: forty-eight books, which is significantly down on 2010's grand total of sixty-nine. I'm not entirely certain why that's turned out to be the case; I suspect it's due to the additional time and effort I've been putting into Existential Ennui (not so's you'd notice, mind), but it could equally be sheer bone idleness on my part. Whatever the reason, I guess I could have cheated and included the two books I'm currently still reading to bring the total up to the totemic fifty... but that would have meant my starting 2012 behind. So forty-eight it is.

The second thing to note is that I read even fewer "new" books this year than I did last: just two published in 2011 (Jason's The Isle of 100,000 Graves – also the only graphic novel I read this year – and George Pelecanos's The Cut), a pathetic number which rises to an equally pathetic four if we stretch "new" to include the previous year as well. So it seems clear I've become even more lodged in the past this year, although, since all the "old" books I've read are, in effect, "new" to me, designations such as "old" and "new" become essentially meaningless in this context – as indeed, in consequence, does this entire paragraph.

Therefore, let's move on to the third and final thing of note, which is that there was more of an even spread as regards the authors I read this year. Whereas in 2010 my reading was very heavily weighted towards Donald E. Westlake, 2011 has turned out to be rather more balanced, with a rough parity between Westlake, Anthony Price, Ross Thomas, Kate Atkinson, Elmore Leonard and one or two others. Quite what this signifies – if, in fact, it signifies anything – is, like many matters, beyond me, but it is a thing, and it has now, for better or worse, been noted (duly).

All of which pointless and ridiculous analysis (emphasis on the "anal") leaves us with just one more post in this end-of-year extravaganza – not to mention also, thankfully, my final post for the year – in which I'll be detailing which of the forty-eight books I read in 2011 were my favourites. Look out for that thrilling missive on New Year's Eve...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 1: Insufferable Navel-Gazing

Well, it's that time of the year again, when we all down tools, decamp to whichever godforsaken corner of the world we hail from (suburban south London in my case, via Surrey and Essex), and get set to munch our way through an overcooked bone-dry bird of some description, hand out gifts we ordered off Amazon, receive IOUs denoting the Amazon-ordered gifts we would have received if the bloody things had turned up on time, and fall asleep in front of whatever tripe is on telly this Christmas.

But wait! The advent of the festive season means it's also time for Existential Ennui's Review of the Year in Books and Comics! And in a frankly welcome change of programming from last year's overlong extravaganza, this year I'll be foisting just three end-of-year posts on you, instead of the previous six. T'other side of Christmas I'll have 2011's version of the Bloody Great List of books I read this year, and after that I'll be choosing my favourite books from that list.

Before all that, though, and as is traditional on Existential Ennui, I'm going to completely ignore the momentous events which have shaken the wider world – Arab spring, tsunami, radioactive emergency, a referendum, riots, recession and a royal wedding – and instead cast a critical eye over a topic which is very dear to my heart: me. Or rather, me, as filtered through Existential Ennui. Last year I posted two EE-centric missives in amongst my end-of-year round-ups, one an overview of EE in 2010 and the other a guide to what I reckoned were my best posts last year. I shan't be attempting the latter this time for the simple reason that I think my posting this year was pretty consistent, at least in terms of depth and breadth, if not quality (only you can determine that); my advice, if you fancy sampling 2011's posts, is to click on whichever subjects in the "Abiding Preoccupations" tag cloud down there in the right-hand column pique your curiosity.

Instead, let's take a more general look at Existential Ennui in 2011. And if 2010 was the year of Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark, then 2011 was the year of the espionage novel. Spy fiction loomed large over Existential Ennui this year, from February/March's Spy Fiction Fortnight right through to my still-ongoing series on spy series, with a number of other author-focused runs of posts in-between, featuring Len Deighton, Anthony Price, Adam Hall, John le Carré, Sarah Gainham, Donald Hamilton and William Haggard.

And indeed runs of posts on various subjects came to increasingly characterize Existential Ennui this year. Aside from the spy fiction authors mentioned above, there were series on Peter Rabe, Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens stories, Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas), Mark Billingham, Ross Thomas (him again), Michael Moorcock, P. M. Hubbard (two runs on him), Donald Westlake's science fiction short stories (two runs of those as well), Patricia Highsmith, political diaries, signed editions and post-apocalyptic fiction.

One thing there was rather less of on Existential Ennui this year was comics coverage. I managed a handful of Notes from the Small Press posts, and a post on the DC Comics New 52 relaunch, but while I continue to buy comics on an almost-weekly basis, I find I have little of substance to say about them. At this point my comics habit really is just that: a habit, rather than a passion. And given how disappointing that DC initiative proved, plus my faltering interest in Marvel's wares, it's a habit I intend to wean myself off of in the new year. (Perhaps after the Avengers vs. X-Men event...)

There were, I think, three blogging-related moments which really stood out for me in 2011. The first of those arrived in April, when the British Library contacted me asking if they could archive Existential Ennui. Coming, as it did, completely out of the blue, the request represented, to my mind, the tiniest vindication of all the effort I'd been putting into Existential Ennui; if an institution as esteemed as the British Library could see some worth – however small – in my ill-informed ramblings, then I must be doing something right. Existential Ennui's dedicated page on the Library's UK Web Archive can be found here (it's already been updated once).

The second stand-out moment came in July, when I got to meet and interview spy novelist Anthony Price. I'd discovered Price's work early in 2011, and thoroughly enjoyed his books, so when I realised he was still with us, and that there were no interviews with him online, I decided to do something about it. My two-part interview with him can be found here and here, and both parts continue to receive hits daily.

The third memorable moment actually had more to do with another blog rather than this one – i.e., the one on The Violent World of Parker website. As of August I became the official co-blogger on Violent World, posting alongside proprietor Trent on all things Westlake, Stark and Parker. I've received a very warm welcome over there, and I don't believe Existential Ennui has suffered as a result, not only because I've been re-posting my Violent World pieces on here too, but also because having to come up with regular(ish) content for TVWoP has meant that I've kept up 2010's level of Westlake-related posting in 2011.

Taking all of that into account, plus other stuff like excellent guest posts from Michael Barber and Paul Simpson, a short Q&A with Dexter creator Jeff Lindsay, and my breaking the news of the return to print of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels, it's been a pretty good year on Existential Ennui. Certainly EE is seeing increasing levels of links and comments coming in and currently attracting well over double the volume of traffic it did this time last year – around 3,500 hits per week at the moment. A percentage of that is obviously spam, and a further percentage repeat visits, and in the grand scheme of things it's still pretty small beer... but for a books blog – and an esoteric, idiosyncratic and frequently unreadable one at that – it's not too bad at all.

Mind you, some things remain unchanged: I still write in the same infuriatingly prolix and pompous fashion I always have. But since it's me who is the driving "creative" (using the term loosely) force behind this blog, there's not a whole lot can be done about that. And if you can stand my abstruse "style" (again, using the term very loosely), there is at least some occasionally useful information on Existential Ennui these days, on authors, cover artists, publishing, and more besides, all of it searchable from the little box just below right of my glorious masthead. Pop in a search term and give it a go, why don't you.

Merry Christmas, and I'll see you all again after the festivities.