The wisdom of always having a book to hand is nowhere better demonstrated than in the fifth James Bond novel, From Russia, with Love (1957). Bond has just been to Istanbul to extract the supposed Soviet defector Tatiana Romanova. Returning to Britain by the Orient Express, they are joined in their compartment by fellow MI6 operative Captain Nash. Bond settles down with a novel partially set in Istanbul, Eric Ambler’s classic spy thriller The Mask of Dimitrios (1939), but after a few pages falls asleep. On waking, he goes to check the time when Nash, whose real name is Donovan Grant, chief executioner of Soviet counterintelligence and the man sent to kill Bond, shoots his watch.

Bond asks and receives Grant’s permission to have a last cigarette before he dies. He takes one from the metal cigarette case in his pocket, then slips the case between the pages of the Ambler novel. He knows from the fate of his watch that Grant is a good shot, that when the man promises to put ‘just one bullet through the heart. Nothing more’, he will be as good as his word. So when the moment comes, Bond brings the book to his chest and trusts in Grant’s aim. The bullet knocks Bond to the floor. He plays dead, then thrusts a knife into Grant’s leg. A scuffle ensues. Bond triumphs.

In no other Bond novel does a book feature so prominently. Occasionally Bond reads something for work, like the book of card tricks he consults in Moonraker (1955) ahead of his game with Sir Hugo Drax. But the books he reads for pleasure are rarely more than namechecked, their usual