Article by Julian Parrott I don’t consider myself an author, but I may now describe myself as a writer. After thirty-plus years of producing the kind of administrative writing familiar across offices everywhere, I recently took the leap into creative fiction (although some colleagues could say that some of my admin memos and reports could…
Article by Jeffrey J. Susla In 1963, Ian Fleming’s “How to Write a Thriller” appeared in the May issue of Books and Bookmen. According to Fleming, “There is only one recipe for a best seller and it is a very simple one. You have to get the reader to turn over the page.” So, during…
Article by Frieda Toth For armchair traveling, you can’t beat Bond, and there’s no more delightful pastime than retracing the steps of a fictional hero, especially knowing that there is no bad guy trying to kill you during your vacation. In 1955, Diamonds Are Forever took James Bond to Saratoga Springs, New York. Here, Bond…
Article by David Salter Although his notoriety, today, stems entirely from his creation of Britain’s foremost literary spy, Ian Fleming was, essentially and first-and-foremost, a journalist. It was his skill in reportage, honed in his early years during a period with Reuters and polished in his forties as Foreign Manager at the Sunday Times, that…
Article by David Craggs For many Bond literary aficionados The Spy Who Loved Me was and remains an anomaly. It represented a brave departure in terms of format and style and when published back in 1962, it garnered Ian Fleming the worst critical reviews of his career. He consequently lobbied Jonathan Cape to suppress the…
Article by David Salter This is a tale from a bygone age, the 1960s. It almost certainly couldn’t happen today, as the components – cheap rents in Central London, relaxed working conditions and the buzz of excitement in the atmosphere, after the austerity of the post-war years, the emergence of pop music, rock’n’roll, discotheques and…
Artistic Licence Renewed 