Note to the reader: this review discusses several twists and surprises. If you haven’t read the book, do so before proceeding further! Review by Revelator. In his New Statesman review of The Man with the Golden Gun, Kingsley Amis described the expectations set by You Only Live Twice: One could hardly wait for the follow-up:…
Review by Jeffrey Susla It appears that with each generation, a new biography of Ian Fleming is published. In 1966, two years after Fleming’s death, John Pearson, a colleague of Fleming’s at The Sunday Times, wrote The Life of Ian Fleming. Pearson, to whom all Fleming fans are deeply indebted, interviewed over 150 individuals associated…
Review by Jeffrey Susla While Matt Sherman’s Playing Games With James Bond comes in at a modest 132 pages, it ranks with the best of the Bond trivia books. Sherman, an expert on collecting James Bond memorabilia and organizer of several Bond collector weekends, has created what Rosa Klebb would call, a “labour of love”…
Review by Jeffrey Susla Ian Fleming found much pleasure in drinking. That much is obvious when encountering the attention paid to the variety of drinks that James Bond orders around the world on assignment. And James Bond, like his creator, finds solace in alcohol. In Thunderball, Bond’s medical report states that he drinks half a…
[Abridged review by Monica Germana for The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007, by Jeremy Black (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 280) in the International Journal of James Bond Studies, DOI: http://doi.org/10.24877/jbs.34%5D The world has been shaken and stirred, if the pun can be excused, by a number of excellent academic…
In the wake of the announcement of Bond 25 at Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye retreat where the 007 books were written, it seems appropriate to revisit the road to Bond 25 and the roots of Fleming’s writing which remain in the films. This history is contained in the paperback of Matthew Field’s and Ajay Chowdhury’s “Some…
Mercifully, literary Bond fans did not have to wait forever and a day for Mr. Horowtiz’s second James Bond continuation novel since 2015’s TRIGGER MORTIS. In fact, rather than a continuation, his new effort is a prequel to CASINO ROYALE that provides him with a clean canvas to work with. The opening chapter starts off…
Article by Robert Rakison In 2015 Matthew Field’s and Ajay Chowdhury’s “Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films” was published by The History Press. On July 2nd, a revised and updated paperback edition is being issued which, we’re told, will include new chapters on Spectre, the upcoming Bond 25 and…
Review by David Salter LA FRANCE DE FLEMING James Bond, une passion francais by Pierre-Olivier Lombarteix (Le Temps Editeur – 2017) In his new book Pierre-Olivier Lombarteix explores the relationship between Ian Fleming, his creation James Bond and France – in Fleming’s original books and in the films that followed. He goes further and looks…
Review by Revelator This is a wonderful book, a long overdue one. For anyone who cares about Ian Fleming’s work, The Man With the Golden Typewriter will be a must-have reference, deserving to rest on the same shelf as Fleming’s biographies, Kingsley Amis’s Bond Dossier, Matthew Parker’s Goldeneye, and Henry Chancellor’s James Bond: The Man…
On January 1 2015, something odd happened and the works of Ian Fleming entered the public domain in Canada. You can read about how that came about here. As to be expected, many people jumped upon this news including Canadian authors Madeline Ashby and David Nickle, who brought together an anthology of collected stories based on…
Review by Jonathan Hopson ‘Who was Robert Harling?’ asks Fiona McCarthy in her foreword. The answer is a man of mystery who played many roles – type designer, advertising executive, sailor, commando, novelist, architectural critic, magazine editor, lothario in fedora and tight trousers. Fellow typographer Ruari McLean summed him up as ‘one of those people…
Review by Craig Arthur © 2015 The previous three James Bond continuation novels prior to Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis did not elevate the literary Bond brand. Sebastian Faulks’s Devil May Care showed contempt for actual Fleming aficionados, evident in the hubris of his assertion that he was ‘writing as Ian Fleming’. Every aspect of Devil May Care is…
On this day in 1962, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, the ninth novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series is published. To celebrate this event, film journalist and screenwriter Matthew Chernov reviews the latest audio book version – read by Rosamund Pike — and explains why this book holds a very special place for him.…
The legacy of the ‘Bond continuation novel’ began in 1968 with Kingsley Amis‘ ‘Colonel Sun’, published by Jonathan Cape on this day – March 28th. Kingsley had been a Bond fan “ever since he discovered the first paperback, ‘Casino Royale’, on a railway bookstall” (The Times Educational Supplement) and had already written the seminal The James Bond Dossier, and…
Article by Dr. Wesley Britton Most fans of the literary 007 know something about the history of the lost James Bond continuation novel, PER FINE OUNCE. Without question, the researcher who’s provided us with the most credible background information is writer and novelist Jeremy Duns. But now that we have Peter Vollmer’s new PER FINE…
Words by Revelator After reading Mathew Parker’s book it will be impossible to over-estimate the importance of Jamaica to James Bond. Beginning with Fleming’s wartime discovery of the island, Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born is a chronological countdown of his years there, interlaced with a concurrent history of country. Goldeneye, Fleming’s Jamaican residence, mirrored the…
Words by Edward Biddulph There are two books that represent the holy grails for fans of Ian Fleming. One is Ian Fleming’s account of Kuwait and its oil industry, State of Excitement, which was suppressed by the Kuwait government. The other is what might have been the first continuation Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, by…
Review by Benjamin Welton Biographers, like translators, often don’t get credit for their work. In the hierarchy of paperbacks and hardcovers, chronicling the life of another is usually placed somewhere below that of a standard history, whether popular or academic. Partially this is a problem of subject, for more often than naught, people buy biographies…
Article by Benjamin Welton As a general rule, I try to refrain from reading the comments on my articles. But, since I am a glutton for punishment, I read ever single comment that was posted to my last piece in The Atlantic (“James Bond’s World War I Origins,” March 12, 2014). One negative comment stood…
Artistic Licence Renewed 