This week’s castaway is Julian Parrott, who is no stranger to the Caribbean, so he might even feel at home stranded! 001. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming. The first novel and therefore holds a special place in the Bond pantheon. Although, for me, it’s not the best Fleming novel, but there is something engaging about the…
Andrew Lycett needs little introduction. He is the fearless biographer who has tackled such great lives as Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dylan Thomas. To date, his 1995 biography of Ian Fleming is every Bondophile’s go-to reference on Ian Fleming. We welcome Andrew in from the cold. Why did you decide to write a…
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…
The 3rd annual Whitstable Literary Festival in Kent this year, took on a spy theme and in particular Ian Fleming and his many Kent connections. Fans of the genre were delighted to witness some of the best names in the literary espionage trade, including many who we have interviewed in the past such as Matthew Parker,…
No, this is not an April Fool’s joke for literary Bond fans! The third Whitstable Literary festival (WhitLit) returns from May 11-15 and this year the programme will take on a ‘super spy’ theme, celebrating James Bond creator Ian Fleming and his Kent connections. There will be a very special Ian Fleming evening on Friday…
This is Robert Harling’s account of his close and enduring friendship with one of the twentieth century’s most iconic writers, a relationship forged in the Second World War that helped define the lives of both men. Their paths met in the early 1940s upon the creation of 30 Assault Unit, a British Commando unit Fleming…
This week we welcome Damian Stevenson in from the cold to talk about his two books about the fictional adventures of Ian Fleming: The Ian Fleming Files. 1. You have now written two books in ‘The Ian Fleming Files’. How does the second compare to the first and how do you approach your research of Ian’s…
There have been many portrayals of Ian Fleming on screen at this point with varying success; but has anyone ever nailed it? Will anyone ever be able to? After the recent lackluster and frankly inaccurate interpretation ‘Fleming‘, patience is running out and Fleming fans must be concerned about the likelihood of seeing him again for some…
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…
Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, Secret Agent 007, stands before the audience, Pink Gin in hand, a terrified look in his eyes…At 42 he is about to do the thing he most fears; he is getting married! It is 1952 and Fleming is putting the finishing touches to the first Bond book, Casino Royale…
If James Bond was on Facebook, you could be sure his relationship status would be set to ‘it’s complicated.’ Of course Ian Fleming famously hadn’t married until he was 43, so putting it off for Bond was easy. Much like his own life, Fleming’s man can count being married once and nearly once prior. In Diamonds Are…
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…
Artistic Licence Renewed 