Bonds Books

When I picked this book up at the library, I was really excited for it. And I was still excited when I started the first section (there aren't really chapters, so page 1 to 12). But by page 10, I was bored. It's beautifully written, but topics and ideas and events are way too drawn out to keep my attention.
Still, I wanted to know what happened, so I skipped to the back of the book and started on page 257 then read to the end. This lets you know just enough to finish the book and understand what happened. And the ending is perfect.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of important stuff that was in the middle, but for now, I know enough to be satisfied. I just don't think I'd be able to get through the middle.

Tricks don't make for good reading. I agree the guy's a poet -- he paints pictures like nobody else -- but every character seems sweaty, half-naked, and unemployed. If I wanted that, I'd walk through my own neighborhood. What I wanted was a story, but what I got was little Jimmy Joyce in a circle jerk with his MFA buddies.

Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Houghton Mifflin, 2002)

In a general, very oversimplified sense, the reason we, as humans, have names is as a way to distinguish us from one another. When I was a small writer, knee-high to a grasshopper (actually, as my parents will tell you, I was never less than knee-high to a baluchitherium, but that's beside the point), one of the things I always thought would be cool was to write a novel that had no names whatsoever in it, where everyone would be distinguished by, well, other distinguishing features. A bunch of us did this with short stories in high school, and they worked pretty well, so why not a novel? Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian never actually names protagonist Sam Chamberlain, referring to him as "the Kid" the entire five-hundred-plus pages, why can't you do that with all your characters?

Well, the simple reason is that eventually, you will run to too many characters. A novel is longer than a short story, and there are only so many characters one can keep straight by distinguishing features without taking notes. And while I'm a fan of taking notes while reading (not only am I am media critic, and thus take notes during everything, but I also read a good deal of nonfiction), I have to say that any novel that forces you to take notes is probably going to be too much work for most folks. And that is the situation with If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. Now, in the synopsis below, I'm going to do a bit of the work for you, so take notes. I should mention that some of the below may be considered minor spoilers for the book (I'm assuming that since McGregor didn't specify some of these things, he meant the reader to gradually discover them on his own, as I did), but trust me, when you get round to reading this, I think you'll be grateful.

The novel takes place in two separate time periods, in two separate places. One of them occurs three years before the other. The earlier time period concerns a morning on a lower-class street, and is full of quite beautiful descriptions of the street itself and the people living in it, many of whom are packing to leave after staying there for a summer (going back to school, presumably, or perhaps just not renewing their leases). This is the section of the book that contains no names; people are described by the house numbers where they live, and one other descriptive (there's the boy with the white shirt, the girl with the glitter round her eyes, etc.). The jacket copy tells us there's a mystery about this section of the book, but the book itself doesn't tell you that until well into itself. The later time period concerns a girl who used to live on the street-- for the life of me, though I have a general idea of who she is from the memories of the people she interacted with, I can't tell you what her number or identifying characteristic was-- who's drifted away from the people she used to know there. She has her own mystery, revealed about halfway through the book, that has nothing to do with the previous timeline. The rest of her story concerns how she deals with that mystery.

I think part of the reason this book missed with me is illustrated in one of the cover blurbs, where the reviewer (I can't remember who it was, nor can I quote, as the book is now back at the library) focuses on the fact that McGregor is writing about the lower class, examining them in the same way some writer examine the more monied classes. Had that not been pointed out, I'd have never made the distinction; in fact, I'm only aware the neighborhood is lower class because of that blurb, and because (if I recall correctly) one of McGregor's characters mentions it in passing somewhere in the book. If there were other signs that these characters were living in a lower-class situation, I either missed them or don't see those markers as class distinctions. Because of this, I didn't see this book as being terribly different than any other novel of its type, save the lack of names. I do think I understand what McGregor was trying to do there-- by stripping the characters of almost all their identifying characteristics, we are forced to not make any sorts of judgments about them based on their race, sex, social status, or what have you-- but I think it was taken too far here. There's a difference between not wanting the reader to make judgments about characters and forcing the reader into a tunnel vision as equally artificial as that which stems from racism/classism/what have you. Of course, it didn't help that the big mystery is so clumsily foreshadowed in the opening pages that you'll probably have figured out what it is by the time you've gotten through the first bit (the book contains no proper chapters, only pauses between the two storylines as they alternate). I'm notoriously slow regarding things like that, and I had it figured out by page five.

Not impressed with this one, sorry to say. **

If you are the type of reader that must re-read a beautiful sentence just for the joy of reading a beautiful sentence, or catch your breath when reading a description too perfect for words, then this is the book for you. It's been three years since reading If No One Speaks of Remarkable Things and McGregor's prose still haunts me.

It moves slowly, it's melancholic yet beautiful. Life and absurdity of circumstances mapped out for us, and the vibration starts from a point in your heart and extend to your whole body, filling you with awe and sadness.

and story-telling ability. I have been a fan of Asian history based fiction since I was first introduced to it by Pearl Buck's THE GOOD EARTH trilogy.

This writer, Gail Tsukiyama has a wonderful sensitivity and a greater gift for making you feel as though you are living the story. In this, her first book, she tells the story of Pei, a young girl, who is sold to the Silk Factory so that her family could survive.

Her journey, after seeing her father turn and walk away and not turn back, when he leaves her at the door of the factory, is at once heart-wrenching and beautiful. Her friendships are endearing but do not take away from the main thread of the story which is the plight of many women trying to survive in the environs in which they are unwillingly placed.

Introduced to this stylistic writer by this novel, I went on to read all her novels and am about to read her newest...The Street of a Thousand Blossoms. Tsukiyama weaves the threads of The Women of Silk with a wonderful history of the times.

This story continues the sad but beautiful journey of Pei. A chinese silk worker. I love any story that takes you into someone's heart. This story does just that. Gail Tsukiyama is a wonderful writer.

You need to read Women of Silk first, and you will love this book. It is easy reading and Gail Tsukiyama is a wonderful story teller.

This is a wonderful sequel to "Women of the Silk". I thoroughly enjoyed the continuing story and the characters, both the old ones and the new ones.
I think the timeline is a very interesting part of World history. I would love to see these books made into a movie.

This was a less than stellar sequal to The Women of the Silk but it did finish the story of Pei to some extent. I found the historical aspect of the novel the most interesting and the story of the women the least believable

I have read all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and this novel was the least enjoyable. It almost seems as if Fleming was having sometime of life crisis or personal issue while writing this book.

The book is written in 3 parts, like 3 separate short stories. The main character is not James Bond, but a 20-something woman named Vivienne Michel. The first part of the book is about her past, the second part is about her present situation, and the third part is about her rescue.

You read through half the book before James Bond makes an appearance. What is unusual is that the book is mostly written from Vivienne Michel's point of view.

Usually I can read one of Fleming's Bond books in 3 to 4 nights because they hold my interest. This book was a struggle to get through. All the novels written before and after this book were far more superior. Not sure what happened to Fleming when he was writing this novel, but I am glad some resolution came before his next book.

If you want to get to the action, read the last chapter of the second part and the entire 3 part. If you are having trouble sleeping, start at the beginning (good luck and sweet dreams).

It takes all of one word to see that Ian Fleming's tenth James Bond novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, is exceptionally out-of-the-ordinary. The first word of the book is "I". Immediately, it is obvious that unlike any other Bond book, this one will be narrated in the first person. Even more extraordinary is that the narrator is not Bond but a young woman named Vivienne Michel.

Vivienne is working at an off-the-beaten-track motel in the backwoods of upper New York. How she got there is the substance of the book's first part. Essentially, she is running after having a pair of bad love affairs, first with a college age boy who is willing to tell her anything just to sleep with her, then with an almost stereotypical German who summarily dismisses her after she disrupts the order of his life.

All this took place in England. Coming back to North America (she is Canadian) to escape her past, she winds up with a temp job at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court. After the motel has closed for the season, she winds up alone at the place while awaiting the arrival of the owner. Instead, on a dark and stormy night, two hoodlums arrive, intent on rape, murder and theft. Fortunately, by chance, another person arrives: James Bond.

Of course, as any Bond fan knows, this will end only one way, with bad guys vanquished and Vivienne falling for Bond. The title alone says it all, and points out one of the basic themes that run through many Bond books: no matter how damaged a woman is, a love affair with a real man (Bond) will cure all. This rather blatantly sexist message is definitely a product of Fleming's era and his target audience of men and comes off as more quaint than truly offensive.

If you enjoyed the movie, you will find the book unrecognizable; of all the Fleming books, this one shares only its title with its cinematic counterpart. While reasonably well-written, it is also a lesser Bond book. It has its appeal, but not as a Bond novel. The first part of the novel is pure soap opera and Bond himself doesn't appear until after the halfway point in the book. Nonetheless, if you're willing to read an offbeat Fleming novel, you should enjoy this book.

The Spy Who Loved Me is very different from the other books, as the story is told from the point of view of a woman, who eventually runs afoul of a couple of gangsters.

A long way into the book Bond turns up and has a confrontation with the crims and gets the girl. With SPECTRE finished, they are still looking for Blofeld.

When I found out that the content of this novel was entirely different from the content of the Moore flick, I decided to read the novel, and boy, am I glad I did. This is a moving, exciting, totally absorbing book, with terrific characterization and surprising tenderness. I couldn't have asked for a better "light" read, and I recommend it to just about anybody.

Having recently read Andrew Lycett's excellent biography of 007 creator Ian Fleming, I found rereading "The Spy Who Loved Me," his tenth James Bond novel, a very unconventional story.

James Bond doesn't appear until page 100. The novel is told from the perspective of Vivienne Michel, a Canadian woman traveling across the USA after two devastating relationships. "Viv" is an strong, sympathetic character--considering that her creator was generally the type of cad who broke her heart! She remembers her deflowering (Fleming had lost his virginity the same way) and her career before fleeing to America (like Fleming, she worked for a newspaper).

But she's a tough, resilient woman, just the type of female who would appeal to a secret agent like 007. Drawn into an insurance scam at a remote New England motel and menaced by two repellent thugs, Viv is threatened with rape and murder until a mysterious Englishman gets a flat tire on a nearby road.

"The Spy Who Loved Me" was an interesting experiment in Fleming's writing that didn't pay off for him. He discouraged any reprints and considered destroying all unsold copies. Who knows what other directions and what risks Fleming might have made if "Spy" had succeeded. In fact, when the producers of the Bond films were looking for their next entry in the series, the Fleming estate allowed them to use only the title of this one.

Reading the novel now in 2007, it appealed to me because Viv's painful past relationships and her determination not to be bitter reflect many women I know now--or wish I knew.

It was also fascinating that the unfeeling men in her past resembled the author more than the main characters. Viv was the strong, beautiful woman he wished he had. And James Bond, as usual, was the dashing super stud he wished he was. Just like the rest of us.

What "improvements" have been made for the Signet edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the Bantam, Berkley, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.

Agatha Christie is a master of creating a seamless world of intrigue, with tightly interwoven subplots that serve the story and with subtle clues that always carry meaning. One thing I love about Agatha Christie is that I trust she's leading me exactly where she wants to take me, with no deviations. Every word she writes counts.

But this book? Did Agatha Christie really write it? So many of the subplots seemed irrelevant, the descriptions and characters all too often trivial and longwinded, and the mystery itself BORING. Yes, an occasional bright spot here and there, but definitely not a winner.

While reading this book I did something that I've never before done with Agatha Christie: I skimmed!

I don't know enough about Agatha Christie to know what went wrong here, and my only guess is that she was just past her prime - in her late-70s - when she wrote it. One of the major themes of the book involved elderly women becoming forgetful, even batty. I couldn't help but wonder if she was writing about herself here - putting a sort of unconscious message in a literary bottle.

Had this book been submitted to a publisher under an unknown writer's name I doubt it would have been published.

I saw a program on TV about Agatha Christie several weeks ago. It was about her early years, first marriage and disappearance for ten days. She is one of my favorite mystery writers and I hadn't read any of her work in a long time. Asked my daughter to bring a book from the library and she picked this one.

Had never heard of the Beresfords before, but thoroughly enjoyed the story. The ending was unexpected, but I wasn't trying to solve the mystery. I was just enjoying the writing. Few can top Agatha Christie.

I expected it to last a snowy weekend. I read it in one day!

By the Pricking of My Thumbs marked a wonderful return of Tommy and Tuppence (truly her novel, though) Beresford that captures them as older people but still with all of the charm of the characters they were during the era of the flappers. The big advantage of this chapter in their fictional lives over previous ones is that Agatha Christie does not have them embroiled in a rather weak political/spy drama, naive politics always being a flaw in her writing. This is actually one of better of Christie's mysteries with many wonderfully dark ideas throughout that provide more fun than the usual stock amount of red herrings. This book effectively combines the dark deeds of the author's later books with the sense of fun of the earlier ones which can sometimes be lacking in the later Christies.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968) marks the penultimate appearance of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. It is one of the novels which I return to periodically because I find that the novel continues to provide a certain amount of entertainment.

In By the Pricking of My Thumbs, we have less the espionage element that might have characterized their earlier adventures, The Secret Adversary, N or M?, or even possibly Partners in Crime. Instead, this novel represents a novel later in Christie's career in which she began to explore alternative reasons for murder. I am reminded of the sort of ingenuity that Christie utilizes in a late Miss Marple Mystery, Nemesis, written around this same period.

The reader should be aware that this even-paced thriller belongs to the brand of mystery in which the reader will have to sit back and enjoy Tuppence's wanderings with only a mysterious painting as an initial clue. The couple is older and their concerns focus little on employment but on the reasons why a woman has disappeared from a nursing home.

I recommend By the Pricking of Thumbs to people who are looking for something a little different from the genre which ordinarily belongs to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. While By the Pricking of My Thumbs is not as odd as Endless Night, I would place this work among her works which emphasize subtle yet insistent menace, drawing on the ordinary as a means of hiding past crimes.

Of the fourteen James Bond books written by Ian Fleming, Goldfinger is the seventh, and when I finished it, I'd reached the halfway point in the series. With the previous book, Dr. No, we got the first true Bond villain, the man with truly megalomaniacal plans that is typical of most of the movies. In Goldfinger, we get another such villain, plus a new first: the first villain's sidekick. These sidekicks are usually the supertough hired muscle, and few are more intimidating than Goldfinger's servant, Oddjob.

Goldfinger actually begins similarly to Moonraker. In the earlier novel, Bond is initially introduced to the villain Hugo Drax when trying to catch him cheating at bridge. In this book, the game is canasta, but Bond still catches Goldfinger in the act. Auric Goldfinger is an extremely wealthy man with an obsession for gold and a mysterious past. With little in the way of scruples and possible ties to SMERSH, Bond's chance encounter develops into an assignment to derail Goldfinger's smuggling operations.

A second "chance" encounter will lead to a golf game between the two, with Goldfinger trying again to cheat to victory. Later, Bond will begin to get the goods on his foe, but will eventually wind up in Goldfinger's clutches. Like all Bond villains, Goldfinger is interested in explanatory monologues and elaborate schemes, in this case, one involving the theft of all the gold in Fort Knox.

Although it has some of the stuff that would later become cliches, this novel is still Fleming at his peak, maybe just slightly less good than From Russia With Love and Dr. No. If you're a Bond fan, this will definitely not disappoint.

More dodgy card players. This book was fun reading, being a canasta player at the time. Bond busts Goldfinger using a spotter to cheat, and makes him pay back what he owes to people.

Not knowing who he is, when Bond is back with MI6 resources available, he checks him out, and finds out he is a gold smuggler, and even worse, is working for those SMERSH super villain types.

Goldfinger has an audacious plan to bust into Fort Knox with some serious weaponry, and using nerve gas. Leiter and Bond work to oppose him, but Goldfinger has some seriously talented help. Pussy Galore and her Catwoman crew of acrobatic purloiners, and Oddjob, the asian anti-John Steed.

Luckily, during this book, Bond has more Q-Branch toys.

Very rarely does a film improve upon the source novel. I wrote a review of one, King's Ransom, which was made into a vastly superior film by Akira Kurosawa called High and Low. Goldfinger, the film, is one of the classic Bonds -- my favorite, to be sure. The novel, in contrast, is too long, is illogical in some parts, offensive in others and makes the reader realize what a superb job screenwriter Richard Maibaum did in adapting it for the film. These weaknesses stand out in particular:

First, the behavior of villain Auric Goldfinger is completely illogical during the torture scene. You might remember the terrific laser beam scene in the film where Goldfinger, played by Gert Frobe, threatens to slice James Bond, played by the great Sean Connery, in half. In the film, Bond gets out of the mess by bluffing, making Goldfinger believe that he knows all about Operation Grand Slam, Goldfinger's plan to blow up Fort Knox. Goldfinger reasons that he can keep the CIA and the British Secret Service at bay by keeping Bond alive and making them think that Bond is his guest, not his prisoner.

The novel, in contrast, has Goldfinger threaten Bond with a saw. Bond doesn't mention Operation Grand Slam and has been a constant thorn in Goldfinger's side. Goldfinger has Bond dead to rights and, unlike in the laser beam scene in the film, has no logical reason to spare his life. However, just before Bond is about to be sawed in half, Goldfinger inexplicably spares him and forces Bond to pose as his secretary. There's a running joke that Bond villains seal their own fate by devising elaborate ways to kill him that allow Bond to escape. However, Goldfinger's action in this scene in the novel completely defy logic and cripple the story's credibility. Bond novels are an escape from reality -- an adult comic book -- but this plot development makes absolutely no sense.

In the novel, Goldfinger's plan is to rob Fort Knox of its gold supply. Fleming, unlike Richard Maibaum, apparently never realized how logistically impossible this is. Connery rightfully points out in the film that to rob Fort Knox would require a whole fleet of trucks and several days to complete. Maibaum's plan, while still fantastic, makes more sense -- detonating a nuclear weapon in Fort Knox to irradiate the U.S. gold supply and drive the value of his own supply up ten times over.

In the novel, Pussy Galore begins as a hardened lesbian who has no interest in Bond whatsoever. Of course, by the end of the novel, Bond has "heterosexualized" and overwhelmed her with his masculine charms. It's a very 1950's view of homosexualtiy -- that is, that a homosexual could be "cured" of his/her sexual desires like it was a disease. The attitude seems very backward and ignorant by today's standards.

The film strongly suggests Pussy's lesbianism, but it also shows Pussy, played by Honor Blackman, flirting suggestively with Bond. Blackman's Pussy may have lesbian tendencies, but she clearly also has a strong attraction to the opposite sex. When she falls for Bond, it makes sense, unlike in the novel. Bond still converts her, but the conversion stressed is more along the lines of Pussy joining the good guys rather than going from staunch lesbianism to being a Bond girl.

The film has a lot of Asian villains. Harold Sakata is terrific as Goldfinger's superpowered Korean henchman Oddjob, Burt Kwouk (Kato in the Pink Panther films) is Mr. Ling, a Chinese nuclear scientist who supplies Goldfinger with the bomb and most of Goldfinger's henchmen are Korean. However, the film, for the most part, avoids extreme racial stereotyping. Many of the villains are Asian, but there's no suggestion that simply being Asian is a source of evil. Asians would later play a prominent heroic role in You Only Live Twice.

The novel, in contrast, is vicously racist in nature. The nadir of this being Bond's statement that Koreans "are lower than apes." It's hard to believe that even in the pre-civil rights era of the 1950's, this statement could slip by without triggering a major protest from an Asian rights group. Today, it seems so ugly and hateful that I immediately lost a lot of respect for Ian Fleming. This is his hero who believes these vile things, so clearly what Bond believes, Fleming believes -- there's no way to separate the two. One wonders which other racial groups Fleming was bigoted against. It's a disgraceful moment in the Bond saga and a shameful comment on Fleming's view of the world.

Novels like Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice are classics and rank among my favorite novels. Goldfinger, however, falls way short of that standard. When I finished Goldfinger, I was left wishing that I had not read it and instead had left my impression of the story to the vastly superior film. The novel not only disappointed me, it made me think much less of Ian Fleming as a person.

You won't find perhaps the most quoted lines from "Goldfinger" in the novel that were heard in the film:

Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger: "No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die."

That's because the filmmakers, in this case anyway, wisely decided to rewrite the entire story for their script.

I've been rereading all of the 007 novels and have just finished reading Andrew Lycett's insightful biography of Ian Fleming, so I've been pretty immersed in the whole James Bond experience (why not? It is, after all, 2007). I bought the new special edition DVD collections and can't wait for "Casino Royale" to hit DVD this spring as seeing it several times in the theatres.

Of the first seven novels, I'm standing by "Casino Royale" and "From Russia, With Love" as the best. I liked them 20 years ago and I like them now.

But I would probably put "Goldfinger" with "Moonraker": worth reading but not as good as the others.

The ambitious plot to rob Fort Knox just doesn't come off. Bond himself even sums up the absurdity of it in the film version ("...now you've only got a few hours before the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines show up to make you put it all back"). In the novel, Goldfinger proposes to use a small atomic device to blast the safes of Fort Knox--a explosion that would probably require some serious excavating to get the irradiated gold loaded up and out of there. In the film, he wants to blast the US gold supply with a dirty bomb to increase the value of his own stockpile.

Goldfinger's plan and Lex Luthor's San Andreas land scheme from the first Superman movie are the two great evil plots of hero movies, as far as I'm concerned.
As Bond concedes in the film, "My apologies, Goldfinger, it's an inspired plan."

Although she has the most infamous name of all the Bond girls, Pussy Galore shows up as an afterthought, an undeveloped character whose sexuality is gossiped about and then chucked aside for the obligatory final coupling with 007. Fleming devotes far more time to Bond's golf game with Goldfinger than he does Pussy's character. The movie spends more time fleshing her character out!

Some scenes were actually funny, such as when Oddjob demonstrates his karate by splintering Goldfinger's staircase and fireplace before dinner as Goldfinger admits that he doesn't really care for his house. It was also funny and somewhat racist for Goldfinger to hand over his pet cat to feed Oddjob when kitty got blamed for something. There were actually two foul swipes in this novel: the insistence that Koreans love eating cats and that American Southerners rape their sisters (Pussy Galore asks Bond at one point, "What do you call a little girl in the South who can outrun her brother? A virgin.")

The novel was more interesting this time when I pictured new 007 Daniel Craig in the scenes. The "blunt instrument" Bond makes more sense in this one.

But here's something I've almost never said about any adaption: the movie was better.

First of all, let me disclose that I really like all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and I particularly like and admire Fleming's lean, understated style of prose. Fleming is underrated as a writer, and James Bond is more than a comic book cutout character.

Goldfinger as a novel has some appealing attributes. The scene in which Bond plays a game of golf with Auric Goldfinger (with the stakes higher than they seem) is a masterpiece. Goldfinger the villain is an ingenious character. The reason I deprived this novel of two stars is first of all that the ending is tacked on almost as an afterthought. Sorry, it just didn't work, and it almost seemed like Fleming reached his page limit, and realized that he needed to wrap up the novel in the next twenty or so pages. Secondly, "Operation Grand Slam" involving a hodgpodge of criminals, seemed highly underdeveloped, and SMERSH would not have dared have a Soviet vessel upload the goal and hightail it to Russia. Nor would it have involved the sweepings of the US underworld in such a plan. It just did not work. Now mind, the idea of robbing Fort Knox is brilliant, and Fleming could have made it work. But here, in my opinion, it did not.

All these criticisms aside, I enjoyed "Goldfinger" the novel, and I recommend it, along with all of the other Bond novels, to anyone who enjoys good writing, a suspension of one's critical facilities for an afternoon, and, of course, James Bond.

To commemorate what would have been Ian Fleming's 100th birthday, on 5/28/08, and in anticipation of the latest James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace," I recently reread Fleming's 1960 offering "For Your Eyes Only" for the first time in 30+ years. Of the 14 Fleming books featuring the exploits of the world's best-known secret agent, only "For Your Eyes Only" and the author's posthumous "Octopussy" (1966) consist of short stories, and the five collected in this earlier volume are a particularly good batch indeed. Two of them had been published previously; the other three were originals for this volume. All feature what is popularly known as the "Fleming Sweep"; the ability of the author, through fast pacing and a remarkable amount of picturesque detail, to make the reader accept even the most improbable of scenarios. And although two of these stories are not exactly espionage tales per se, they all provide insights into the fascinating character that is the literary 007.

The collection starts off strongly with "From a View to a Kill," in which Bond is given the task of finding out who has been murdering governmental dispatch riders on their motorbikes and stealing top-secret documents. The tale takes place in the suburbs of Paris and features some exciting gunplay at the conclusion, as well as an intriguing female ally, Mary Ann Russell, who we unfortunately do not get to know overly well.

In the title story, "For Your Eyes Only," Bond goes on a personal mission for his boss, M, whose old friends, the Havelocks, have just been killed by an ex-Gestapo agent named von Hammerstein and his Cuban hitmen. In the northernmost wilderness of Vermont, Bond finds these men in a mountain lodge, and (as in the 1981 film, which otherwise is completely different from this story) encounters the Havelocks' daughter, hot on the vengeance trail herself. The suspense quotient in this tale is very high, as Bond uses all his commando skills to sneak up on the villains' lair, and, as in the collection's first story, an explosive finale caps things off. A most satisfying tale indeed.

The book's third offering, "Quantum of Solace," originally appeared, of all places, in the May 1958 issue of "Cosmopolitan" magazine. This is a most unusual story in the Bond canon; indeed, it is one that is narrated TO Bond by the governor of Nassau, where 007 had just completed an assignment involving Cuban revolutionaries. The governor's after-dinner tale concerns a couple that he once knew in Bermuda society; one whose marriage went sour after infidelity, jealousy and bitterness poisoned it. It is a fascinating story of domestic hell, and one that makes Bond realize that his (previously regarded) exciting life may be a little dull when compared to some others'.

In "Risico," M, much against his will, condescends to involve his Secret Service in drug busting, and sends Bond on a mission to Rome and Venice to smash the heroin ring that had recently started to corrupt British youths. Bond encounters two rival smugglers in Rome, Kristatos and Colombo (again, two characters that feature in the "For Your Eyes Only" film, in a wholly different context), as well as the mysteriously motivated Austrian Lisl Baum (ditto), and participates in a ship raid on a drug-storage warehouse. The story is fast paced and generally exciting, and features an incredible amount of travelogue detail to add to its realism.

The collection concludes with "The Hildebrand Rarity," which initially appeared in the March 1960 issue of "Playboy." Like "Quantum of Solace," this is not really a secret agent tale, but rather an adventure that Bond is involved in, after investigating certain security arrangements in the Seychelle Islands for the British Admiralty. He and his friend Fidele Barbey (similar to the Quarrel character in 1958's "Dr. No") are hired by a boorish American millionaire, Milton Krest (a completely different character than the one portrayed by Anthony Zerbe in 1989's "Licence to Kill"), to go on an expedition to capture a rare tropical fish for the Smithsonian. Aboard Krest's luxury yacht, Bond meets Krest's attractive and abused wife and gets involved in a sudden murder. Fleming's love of scuba diving yields effective results here; his detailed descriptions of undersea life are both gorgeous and evocative. This story, although lacking any real action per se, features wonderful characters, great suspense and a nicely ambiguous conclusion. Like "Quantum," it is an unusual Bond story that succeeds marvelously, bringing to a conclusion this rather winning collection of (as the book's subtitle puts it) "Five Secret Exploits of James Bond." The book should serve as proof positive that novelist Ian Fleming had a sure hand with the shorter form as well. It is required reading, needless to say, for all fans of 007.

All of Fleming's Bond novels, and most of his short stories, are such a relief to read in today's relativist, anti-patriotic, multi-cultural, male-bashing or emasculating culture. These novels (and also Mickey Spillane's) are my measure of what a cultural norm should be. They are such an antidote to the weepy, pseudo-introspective rubbish that passes for popular literature today.

For those who have made their way through the first seven James Bond books, the eighth book in the series, For Your Eyes Only, is a bit of a change-of-pace, a collection of five short stories. Not only are these stories shorter, they are also simpler, with no grand villains or complicated plots. For those familiar with the movies, two of the stories would, at least nominally inspire movies; the titles of the other three tales would be less familiar.

Three of the stories are typical spy type tales. The first story, A View to a Kill, opens with the murder of a courier in France carrying valuable information for NATO. Bond is in the neighborhood and recruited to assist in the investigation and uses his skills to outshine the allied intelligence agencies. The second story, For Your Eyes Only has Bond planning an assassination of a Cuban/German thug who killed a couple who happened to be friends of M's. Things get more interesting when the couple's daughter has her own plans for vengeance. The fourth story, Risico, puts Bond in the middle of a feud between two smugglers, forcing him to join up with the lesser of two evils.

The out-of-the-ordinary stories are the third and the fifth. In the first of this pair, Quantum of Solace, Bond doesn't really do anything beyond listen to a tale told by the Bahaman governor. This story-within-a-story involves the marriage of a civil servant and a flight attendant, one that goes sour quickly due to her blatant affairs and leads to her harsh comeuppance. The final story, The Hildebrand Rarity is another story of a marriage gone bad: Bond is cruising on the yacht of an abusive millionaire and his cowed wife; it's the sort of relationship that will wind up with a dead body by the end of the trip.

All of the stories are passably entertaining, with the spy tales slightly outdoing the offbeat ones. What's missing are the elements that make the Bond stories stand out: the adventure, the psychotic villains and the threats to England and the rest of the West. What's left is decent, but unexceptional. This one won't win many new fans, but it should satisfy the ones who already exist.

This grouping of short stories doesn't hold up to the normal standard that i think most of the Ian Fleming's James Bond novels do. It is still a good read and if you like the other James Bond novels then give this a toss.

Not a novel, but a collection of five stories.

From a View to a Kill, For Your Eyes Only, Quantum of Solace, Risico and The Hildebrand Rarity.

So, Bond investigates the death of a NATO employee, then looks into the death of a friend of M's as a favour, then is told a story at a boring dinner party, looks into drug smuggling in Italy, and finally goes on a fishing trip where he learns about some extraordinary methods of wife discipline.

For Your Eyes Only : 01 From a View to a Kill - Ian Fleming
For Your Eyes Only : 02 For Your Eyes Only - Ian Fleming
For Your Eyes Only : 03 Quantum of Solace - Ian Fleming
For Your Eyes Only : 04 Risico - Ian Fleming
For Your Eyes Only : 05 The Hildebrand Rarity - Ian Fleming


Motorbike murder trail.

3.5 out of 5


Bowhunter beautiful daughter.

4 out of 5


Dull dinner party dirt dished.

2.5 out of 5


CIA drug caper.

3 out of 5


Millionaire stingray tail spousal corporal corrector is stuffed, piscatorially.

4 out of 5

This submarine yarn in Bond's best effort in a very long time. I've read everything he's written, but I think he does his best job yet of integrating all the specifics of the technology, the excitement of the action and the fleshing out the characters. While there isn't a great deal of action in the front half of the book, Bond's characterizations and interesting descriptions of what could have been mundane submarine life kept the book moving. I loved this book for the first nine-tenths, but will admit the end was very ineffective. It was so out of character with the rest of the book, it seems unfinished, like Bond was way past deadline and the editor was saying it had to be finished today. The rest of the book more than offsets that minor peccadillo, however, and I heartily recommend this book.

This military procedural starts out slow, perhaps because it is too concerned with "procedure." We spend nearly a hundred pages before Jerry Mitchell, a newly assigned junior officer, actually puts to sea on the submarine Memphis, and far too much of it is concerned with bureaucracy and paperwork. Yes, some of it figures into the character development - Mitchell must fight for acceptance as he struggles to learn the ropes and cram for qualifying exams - but it was more than I wanted to know.

Bond's ear for dialogue seems wooden at times and his characters a bit two-dimensional - Mitchell the young striver, Captain Hardy the martinet, Foster as an embittered chief petty officer resenting the young Mitchell, Dr. Joanna Patterson as the heavy-handed environmentalist and feminist sent aboard by the White House to run a dubiously conceived mission drenched in politics. As the sub gets into its voyage, though, the novel picks up steam and the dialogue and characterization issues recede.

The Memphis has been tasked to nose around offshore sites where the Soviets dumped radioactive waste, where Patterson hopes to find evidence of worsening environmental disaster the President can use against the Russians at an upcoming summit. They have to sneak into shallow Arctic waters near the Russian island of Novaya Zemlya, using robot subs to investigate the dump sites. Mitchell meanwhile is the officer in charge of the sub's own robot, which has its own role in the mission.

Bond does a good job dramatizing the risks of submarine life, not only in combat, but during routine events which can quickly turn disastrous.

I have to agree with most of the reviews here. This book is an excellent read, and anyone who likes Tom Clancy will really like this book. However, the ending did fizzle. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't sync up with the intensity of the rest of the book. All-in-all, I felt it was well worth reading, and I plan to pick up other Larry Bond books in the future.

A good read but the ending faded to nothing. Looked like Larry wanted to wrap it up quickly. I was disappointed with the ending. THe story went along with a cracking pace but the subplot of why the weapons were there was a bit weak and lacked some punch.

USS Memphis is out of date technology, a war-weary rust bucket submarine that has served its country and is now scheduled to be de-commissioned. But the President, in a bid to collect political points at an upcoming conference with the Soviets, has ordered the Memphis to complete one last covert mission - to sneak into Russian territorial waters, to document an environmental nightmare and to bring home evidence of leaking fuel containers dumped on the floor of the Arctic Ocean by the Russians during the height of the cold war.

Commander Lowell Hardy, a CO whose unpleasant and impossible to please leadership style is rivaled only by Captains Queeg and Bligh, is saddled with a novice weapons officer. This is the very first assignment for Lt Jerry Mitchell, a former naval aviator who made a mid-career switch to submarines after his Hornet fighter crashed with the resulting injuries sidelining him forever from flight status. And to make matters worse, the president has ignored all naval submarine tradition and appointed two civilian scientists, female no less, to lead the mission from on board the submarine.

As if lurking around Russian territorial waters looking to score points and politically embarrass the Soviet government wasn't bad enough ... the mission discovers a secret far more deadly than it ever bargained for and provokes an armed naval response that is much, much more than the aging Memphis is capable of facing. The Russian fleet is determined to sink the Memphis and wipe out all evidence that she was ever there in the first place.

"Dangerous Ground" is a first rate techno-thriller that will have you turning pages just as quickly as you can manage. But as Larry Bond pointed out in the author's note preceding the novel, a techno-thriller ought to be much more than a compilation of technical data which anyone can find with proper research. In the case of "Dangerous Ground", Bond has done a superb job, not only with individual characterization, but also with a compelling description of submariner culture - their attitudes, their loyalties, their black sense of humour, their fears and their bravery.

A thoroughly enjoyable plot driven thriller supported by a wealth of technical and, of equal importance, cultural and character details. Well done, Mr Bond!

Paul Weiss

The book is the best in the business and the bible of fix income instruments. I bought it to review some concepts and I am very happy I did.

Great purchase. The authors do a superb job of describing topics in basic terms then escalate to the nitty gritty number crunching behind the concepts. I recommend for anyone needing a complete guide to FI securities.

very good as a reference and general overview; if you want more detail and in-depth analysis you should look for something else but there's lots of specific lieterature out there so this still makes a good starting point

i give 4.5 stars.

many reviewers comment that this book lacks depth, but hey, it just tries to give a general overview on a variety of fixed income securities, that's what it is, and this book does reasonably well on this purpose. it never means to contain everything on every fixed income securities.

the only thing i am concerned is that the page numbers listed on the index sometimes do not match.

Good reference for bond math and a great thing to have on any debt capital markets desk.. I use it very frequently.. its a classic ..

A true "classic" of colonial adventure.

You can read it at many levels, the basic one of course is the tale about valor/cowardice and how this duality has no middle ground, either you do your duty (as per late XIXth standards) or YOU FAIL MISERABLY... in a way a civilized fanaticism of the best class... But you can also read it as a matter of fact "manifest destiny" for Britain as ruler of a vast Empire... how you MUST avenge GORDON... there is also no middle ground here... we got the men, we got the guns, we got the money, and by jingo etc.

The most interesting part of the book (once the other layers understood) for me was the inner conflict of Harry... beautifully wrote down... after all it is not that simple... he has done nothing wrong... he has followed the family tradition of soldiering but he thinks that marriage is enough excuse to stop, and so all military obligations are extinct and he can follow his own desires... but HE is no master of his future as he soon discovers...

And then, it is as much about Ethne and DURRANCE! (who in the novel it is not one of the white feather senders... those are Captain Trench, Castleton and Willoughby... much more like it!... and it makes you love the Durrance character much more... and also Trench...), and then the blind colonel uses power of deduction who makes some chapters read like the best Conan Doyle!... somehow maybe the best chapters and parts of the book... so you are enthralled by THE MUSOLINE overture and how and by whom is played...

Really a wonderful book, I must confess I have an old hardback edition, (with pictures of an OLD black and white film I have never seen!!! and clearly does no follow the plot of the book!...) but I am sure this paperback edition must be OK.

The book is much more deeper than the lot of films based on it. Actually "THE" best version is of course the KORDA brothers one (from a point of view of "a great adventure film"...)...


ADB

PS: The last film remake is really awful!... it simply shows COWARDICE down your throat all the way... A blatant mistake... and the Sudan looks like some suburban half-developed or semi-dig hole... A SHAME.

This is a classic story about honor and personal courage. I like to be reminded of how important these aspects were to people in the 19th century. It is a good story.

"The Four Feathers" is a book I've been meaning to read ever since I saw the 2002 movie. I expected there to be differences from the book and movie, but nothing of this magnitude. I enjoyed the movie, so I thought I'd enjoy the book. Instead, I found the movie to be much more compelling than the book, which, in comparison, was a sappy soap opera. The book - I felt - focused more on Durrance's blindness and Ethne's self-imposed obligation to him. I at times completely forgot about Harry Feversham and what he was trying to accomplish. I felt the book's summary was very misleading; I felt the movie took the more interesting aspects of the book and expounded upon them. Even when you discard any thought of the movie, and you try to rate the book itself, it falls short. In the movie, I knew why Harry did what he did. While reading this book, I was still left wondering why. If I look at it as a romance novel, then it was well written. If I look at it as a war-type novel, then it totally missed the mark. I "sorta" recommend.

The four feathers is a tale of the meaning of Victorian virtues of heroism. The tale takes on a very Clausewitzian stance on the difference between physical courage, shown in Durrance, and moral courage, shown in Harry Feversham. Harry is disgraced for he refused to face combat in Sudan in the late 1880's. He is sent white feathers by his comrades and given one by his to be fiancé, Ethne. He then takes a path of redemption to regain honour in the eyes of his friends and woman. Overall, this novel is an excellent show of the difference between moral and physical courage, and with deep psychological development in the characters.
This novel is one of the most intriguing character development novels, perhaps even rivaling Heart of Darkness. The characters of Harry, Durrance, and Ethne are all so engaging and enticing that you cannot but help to get engrossed within this novel. Yet that is where the engagement ends. The front cover of this novel is indeed very deceptive. The work is predominately, as one reviewer already noted, a psychological and emotional journey. This book is not an action war novel in the likes of Cornwell, Clancy, Smith, O'Brian, Forrester, and other military writers. The reader used to these kinds of action-packed works with a great balance between character development (Sharpe and Harper, or Aubrey and Dr. Maturin being the most famous character pairs)and historical military action will find this novel sorely lacking. The novel retains a hint of allusion to action such as breaking of squares and night-actions and the like, yet the reader seeking a vivid mental imagery finds the material lacking in description. The descriptions of POW life and the House of stone were haunting, yet seem misplaced within a Victorian war novel. The action (or allusion to it, as is predominately the case) in the novel is sorely to further the admittedly outstanding character development of Harry, Durrance, Sutch, Ethne, and other distinguished characters.

Overall an excellent character development story, yet to those looking for action and a historical analysis of actual battles and fighting, look to the aforementioned authors instead.

I found this book to be a classic tale of honour and redemption, dealing with love and perceived cowardness. This book is about a young man, Harry Ferversham, who is brought up in an old military family, thinks he is a coward and is about to be married to a girl who's father disproves of the military. As a result, he decides to quite the military. The trouble comes when he finds out that his unit is about to be shipped off to war, just before he quits, but he decides to quite anyways. Three of his friends in his military unit send him white feathers of cowardness, and when his fiancée finds out, she breaks off her engagement, and gives him a fourth feather.

Harry, with his life in tatters decides to go and attempts to do heroic acts for his friends, in the hope that if they redeem their feathers, his fiancée, Ethne Eustace, will withdraw hers.

Meanwhile, Jack Durrance, one of Harry's other friends, finds out that Harry and Ethne's relationship has been broken off, but not why it was broken off. He tries to court Ethne, as he was in love with her before, but she has now decided that she made a mistake with sending Harry away, and doesn't love Jack. Before she can tell him this, Jack gets blinded, and she decides to pretend to love him so that she can care for him.

Interestingly, this story is told, after the feathers have been given, primarily from the viewpoints of Ethne and Jack, which allow the reader to find out what's happening only as those characters do, and it also allows us to see Jack and Ethne's thoughts towards each event as they slowly piece together what is and has happened with Harry.

A warning note is, like many of my fellow reviewers have stated, there is very little action in the book, unlike in the movie adaptations, as many of the events are just mentioned as a backdrop. But, this is not a bad thing, as this story does not need any major action scenes, and they would probably hurt this story, which is more of personal struggles, of love and honour, than battles.

This story has some 19th Century ideals, such as colonialism, and the fact that there is only one non-white character in the book, who, while he plays a fairly major supporting role, is not that well developed, nor is he a very strong character. Despite all of this, I really enjoyed its tale of honour and redemption, and if this book is taken as a product of it's time, it is really quite amazing. The book also gives the reader a great view of upper-class English life in this time period.

For those of us who love Murakami and harbor the desire to get to know the guy, _Running_ is sure to disappoint. He admits to being cold and distant--not a nice guy after all. And the mystery of the way he lives his life? Discipline, schedule, diet, and exercise. It's not exactly the cool Murakami I expected, but this book is full of inadvertently and reluctantly delivered sage wisdom. A good read if you run, and an excellent read if you write.

I enjoyed Murakami's previous fiction work. I never realized he was a runner. So to my surprise, when I saw this book I was excited. It's a great read and inspiring - for both runners and not-so physically active readers...

What I talk about when I talk about running - Haruki Murakami

Theme:
Making best use of ones talents in running as a metaphor for life and especially for running is the main theme of this book. Murakami started running at 33 after realizing that smoking an average of 60 cigarettes a day wasn't doing him any good. Twenty four marathons later and well over fifty years old, he is penning his thoughts on running and the part it plays in his life as an individual and as a writer.

Essentials:
* You have some talents in any sphere - running/writing. You can just do "as best as you can", by developing endurance and focus, without which one cannot "push his possibilities".
* Long distance running is an excellent example wherein need for endurance, both during preparation and during the race, is visibly apparent. It is ditto with writing and in general, for most activities in life.
* You should do whatever you want to do irrespective of the talent you have, but be aware that you are only pushing your possibilities.
* You need to be honest about yourself, honest about what you would want to achieve and paddle on to achieve it.
* It is not possible to please everyone, but the key element is to please a few. If you run a Jazz Bar or write a book, you do not expect every visitor or reader to like what you dish out, only a few would. The measure of your success in your professional life is how many of such "customers" you have and how much joy they derive from your enterprise. Though you'd never realize the extent of it.

Some thoughts
How about walking? Doesn't it achieve all the ingredients of "pushing the limits" and at the same time permit one to enjoy the places at a much leisurely pace, it is much more natural, remember, as natural as walking! It is therapeutic and maybe meditative as well. Agreed, it is not "glamorous" or competitive as running, but it has major plus of being something natural, safe and perfectly healthy activity while permitting one to reach places at a leisurely pace.

P.S
* Somerset Maugham: "A philosophy lies in each shave": Given enough time and contemplation on single act, the act become deep, acquires a meaning and life of its own. It makes up for a metaphor, maybe a microcosm of life itself.
* We come back to the rebellion of the existential philosophers: it really doesn't matter what one does, except the cadence one does it with. That is the revolt and that is the perhaps the philosophy that Maugham refers to.
* "18 till I die" (Bryan Adams): Means that you die at 18!

Like many people I love Murakami. I don't have 1 favorite. It can be Windup chronicles, Kafka on the shore, Dance dance dance or even Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world. Yet, if you do like Murakami like me and don't want to be disappointed. I strongly suggest you avoid this book. It's autobiographic and has nothing of that magic of his fictional books. The only reason to read this book is when you run like he runs. If you want to read about other people preparing for a marathon this book has some insights you want to know about. If you don't run long distances and just like literature in general and/or specifically Murakami avoid this book. Don't spoil your feelings/associations/recollections by reading this book. Preserve Murakami as you know him!

I did not know Murakami's work at all before I purchased this book. I saw it in the running section at a bookstore and decided to give it a read. As I was purchasing the book the sales staff got very excited- turns out they were all huge fans. One person had even done her M.A. Dissertation on Murakami!

I was expecting some running inspiration. What was amazing is that I found an honest exploration into why someone does what they do, written in a way that was simple, moving, and eloquent. It had been so long that I cried when a book was over because it was so good, until I read this.

If you are a fan of Murakami, then the details of his life will be interesting, and are outlined very nicely by other reviewers here. If you are like me and not familiar with his celebrity, then what you will find is a moving memoir that is humble, insightful, and through its simplicities, leaves you changed. Even if you cannot relate to his perspective, you come to understand him and feel a sense of empathy.

If you are a runner, you will love this book, as Murakami speaks of his running rituals and motivations as metaphor for larger life lessons. If you are a writer, you will love this book, as Murakami illustrates some of the insights he has into himself as a writer and his writing process. If you just want a nice, easy read that is entertaining and touches the heart, you will love this book, because it does just that.