Customer Reviews

James Bond in the 21st Century: Why We Still Need 007 (Smart Pop series)

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I'm a sucker for lofty treatments of popular subjects (I loved all those American Studies courses I took in college), so this book was a fun ride. Actually, it's not all that lofty... just light little essays, appreciations, and riffs about the James Bond books and movies. The pieces are mostly on the humorous side (successfully humorous for the most part, thankfully), though there are a couple of pretty interesting straight-forward pieces about different aspects of the Bond literary and filmic canon. One essay, for example, proposes that there are major Oedipal themes in the movie "Goldfinger", and damn if the author's examples didn't have me nodding in agreement.

The book is about 200 pages long and composed of ten or so essays (about eight to ten pages each), with a few one or two page jokey/light pieces (mostly revolving around James Bond's eating and drinking habits and, of course, his enthusiastic pursuit of the opposite sex) scattered among the longer offerings. So, for a week or so, it was pleasant fun to read one or two pieces each night before bed.

Finally, for a small-press book with a light popular-culture bent, "James Bond in the 21st Century" is well organized, nicely edited, and almost completely free of typos. You see, regardless of whether they contain material worth reading, small-press books on "gee whiz/geeky" popular culture topics such as this one are notorious for their lack of production polish and overall amateur air. However, this book was refreshingly free of the "amateur hour" production quality of many trade paperbacks of this type.

The good content and solid production of this title make me want to check out other offerings in the "Smart Pop" series.

Good, not great, but there were some really interesting essays in the book, some pretty dry, others a little too light on substance and heavy on fluff. I'd only really recommend buying it if you're really into the analytical side of the Bond franchise, otherwise it's something you'll read once and never look at again.