Matthew Parker
From Ian with Love
The Man with the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters
By Fergus Fleming (ed)
Bloomsbury 400pp £25 order from our bookshop
Ian Fleming is fascinating. He was a man of his times, holding attitudes from the 1950s – towards women, race and empire – now widely discarded and discredited. Yet his creation and alter ego James Bond goes from strength to strength. A new film has opened, following on from Skyfall, the most successful yet, which earned over a billion dollars around the world. Fleming’s books have sold more than a hundred million copies just in English. And more than a modern commercial juggernaut, James Bond is also a cultural force to be reckoned with. He achieved his apotheosis, of course, when he stole the show at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, together with that other great British anachronism, the Queen. What does having Bond as a national icon say about us?
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore
'As we read, we know that in a short time the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and colour television will sweep that age over the balustrade and into the sea, but for now everyone is happy.'
Simon Baker is charmed by Graham Swift's new novel, 'Here We Are'.
http://ow.ly/uDL050ylh80
'As science moves forward ... are we entering an era where sex is for leisure and IVF is for creating the perfect child?'
@MGilmore121 takes a look at the future of IVF in her review of @RobertKlitzman's 'Designing Babies'.
http://ow.ly/xuJY50ybNJa