I have quite an extensive book collection, collected over a number of years. In my library I have all the Ian Fleming-written James Bond Novels. And just the other day, I finished the last book of the entire series. It’s only taken me around about 3 years. I’ve not been reading them one after the other, but rather whenever I could read them, out came the novel next on the list. I read them in the order they were published, rather than all over the place, as I’d read elsewhere that Fleming would sometimes refer to novels gone before in whatever he was writing.

In these days of politcal correctness, some of the writing is quite offensive. But the novels are very much a product of their time. But for all their faults, I prefer the Jmaes Bond of the novels than the earlier movies. The difference is that in the last 2 movies, James Bond bleeds, and in the books he bleeds. One of the things I like about the film version of “Casino Royale”, is that it’s probably as close to the book as possible, even down to the quote of “The bitch is dead” at the end of both book and movie.

If you thought that the quote “Bond…James Bond” came from the scriptwriters of the movies, think again. It’s in the books. And also the quote, “We’ve got all the time in the world” (at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). What I’m seeing in my mind while I’m reading is a different character entirely to the one on film.

If I had to choose my favourite book out of the lot, ‘twould have to be the first one, “Casino Royale”. Excellent pace, excellent imagery, and an excellent way to torture your hero in the very first book (near enough the same in the movie, if you want to know). And the worst, has to be “The Spy Who Loved Me”. Yuck. Ugly book. Just wanted to get to the last page and forget about it. Just didn’t work for me at all.

I wonder whether the reason why they’ve put the new James Bond movie on ice, is because they’ve run out of fresh ideas?