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The women in the Bond universe are too often characterised using two words: Bond Girl. Here we take a look at the most villainous of them.

One of my favourite and most frequently used culinary insights from the James Bond books is the recipe for scrambled eggs from 007 in New York, originally from the US edition of Fleming’s collection of travel writing, Thrilling Cities. Author of the new Bond book Solo, William Boyd, writes his book having been inspired by the […]

Over the summer several newsletter subscribers got in touch to let me know what they were doing over the summer. One of those was Laurent-Jean Gacher, who shared a number of great photos of 007 related locations in Switzerland and Italy. Piz Gloria Greeted by George Lazenby at Piz Gloria   Piz Gloria’s Bond World […]

Ever since I was young the James Bond films have been important to me. I remember a journey with my family in which my cousins and I played at diving like in Thunderball, holding a ballpoint in our mouths like a respirator; although in a wheelchair I was able to relive some of my favourite […]

Fifty years ago today saw the world premiere of From Russia With Love at the Odeon Leicester Square. With a few notable differences, including the substitution of SPECTRE for SMERSH, the film closely followed Ian Fleming’s novel and following on from Dr No, a year earlier, was eagerly awaited by audiences hungry for 007. From […]

William Boyd’s explanation of his decision to give Bond’s age as 45 in 1969 has prompted me to write up some thoughts on the tricky subject of Bond’s age. Boyd offers his contention that as You Only Live Twice was the last Bond novel published in his lifetime, Fleming’s statement, via M’s premature obituary, that Bond […]

Writing a Bond novel must be pretty tough. After all, many have tried to take on the heavy yoke of expectation that surrounds anything even loosely associated with Britain’s cold war master spy, James Bond, 007. In 2012, Sam Mendes’ latest cinematic effort, Skyfall seemed to suggest that Daniel Craig et al were just getting […]

“But now the club head was going back, coming down, the left knee bent correctly in towards the ball, the left arm straight as a ramrod. Crack! The ball sailed off, a beautiful drive, as good as Goldfinger had hit, straight down the fairway. Bond’s heart sang. Got you, you bastard! Got you! Blithely Bond […]

Today sees the release of the new James Bond novel – Solo – by William Boyd. It is a special year for Bond books, as 2013 is the 60th Anniversary of the original publication of Casino Royale in 1953. I got the chance to go along to The Dorchester for the launch yesterday to hear […]

There has been much speculation about the precise location of and inspiration for the fictitious resort of Royale-les-Eaux, which features in two of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, Casino Royale and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Casino Royale, the book that introduced Bond to the world, is deliberately or otherwise fairly obscure about Royale’s location. The […]