Tim Glister

Countdown with ...

Tim Glister

Tim Glister is a novelist who wishes he were a spy. Originally from the north east coast near Newcastle, he's lived in London for 15 years. He never had a Geordie accent, but the longer he's been down south the more he's started to sound like a 1970s newsreader.
 
He's worked in bookselling, publishing, tech, politics and finance for some famous brands – and some infamous ones. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek and is working on his building his knowledge of the Marvel universe. He's fascinated by Cold War stories, from the explosive derring-do of Ian Fleming to the grim all-too-realness of John le Carré. He can bake a mean chocolate and whiskey cake. He is a cat person.

Interviewed 22 July 2022

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Interesting, unexpected, rewarding, fluid, voracious, impatient, determined, stubborn, terrifying, exciting.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

My laptop, my notepad (I hand write/scribble a lot), a little ceramic owl from Hanoi, a sign that says ‘less is more’ by Mies van der Rohe, a Kurt Vonnegut print that says ‘there is a ceiling on human thought’, the giant brown cord egg chair I bought for £15 20 years ago and will never get rid of, a full coffee cup, an empty coffee cup next to the full one, an overflowing bookshelf.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Good bread, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper … and a large glass of red.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

John le Carré, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, Evelyn Waugh, Violette Szabo, Hedy Lamarr, Nina Simone.

Six things you can't live without ...

Coffee, Muji 0.5 black pens, Google, Nairn’s cheesy oatcakes, black cherry yoghurts, sleep.

Five favourite words ...

Indeed, subterfuge, colossal, specious, languid.

Four places you'd run away to ...

Hong Kong, Iceland, the past, the future.

Three books you've bought recently ...

Silverview by John le Carré, Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Two things that make you rant ...

The word ‘whilst’. People who get on a train/bus before people have got off.

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

Life will be easier if you just silently judge people who overuse the word ‘whilst’ instead of trying to wage a one-man war to get it removed from the dictionary.