For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond [Hardcover]

Ben Macintyre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2008

A riveting look into the world of James Bond and his creator, published on the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth.
In For Your Eyes Only, Ben Macintyre reveals where the world of Ian Fleming ends and the world of James Bond begins. Macintyre looks at the actual people on whom the writer based his fictional creations—friends, colleagues, lovers, and, of course, the notorious villains. Exploring the tradition of spy fiction past and present, with specific attention to the Cold War, Macintyre explains how Bond was based on the realities—and fantasies—of Fleming’s life as a wartime spymaster and peacetime bon vivant.
Stylishly illustrated, For Your Eyes Only features a collector’s dream of gadgets, costumes, props, and storyboards from the films—Daniel Craig’s bloodstained shirt from Casino Royale, the Aston Martin DB5, complete with weaponry—as well as memorabilia from Fleming’s personal archive: his smoking jacket, the manuscript for Casino Royale, his golden typewriter, his guns, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—This thoroughly researched, intelligently written, and beautifully presented book explores in detail the connections between a super-successful writer and his marvelously engaging creation. Fictional characters, even one as exotic, sexy, and talented as Bond, seldom emerge from the pure, unaltered imagination of the author. Bond has deep roots in Fleming's life, in the places where the author lived and visited, the people he knew and worked with, and in the family, social, and love life he experienced. Macintyre also investigates the real-life roots of other major characters, such as Miss Moneypenney, M, and supervillain Ernst Stavro Biofeld. He examines the plot origins of several of the stories, as well as the real-world gadgets and gizmos that show up so famously in the books and movies. Where does the "Bond girl" come from? And what should we make of Bond's life of luxury? These and other questions are answered here, revealing Macintyre's convincing reverence for and fascination with the intertwining worlds of these figures. The volume is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs.—Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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Review

“[A] marvelous tribute…He examines, among other things, the probable genesis of Bond's name (an ornithologist) and his spycraft (a number of exotic and intrepid agents, entertainingly described). He looks at the sources for Bond's taste in women (Fleming) and attitude toward them (Fleming) and at the effect of the Bond-of-the-movies on the Bond-of-the-books (significant).” —Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915447
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915442
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the uninitiated into Ian Fleming's world...., June 10, 2008

By 

Kenneth M. Pizzi (San Mateo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond (Hardcover)

As one who studied Fleming's work extensively as a graduate student and later publishing a thesis on the writer's impact on pop culture of the period, I must admit I was a bit skeptical about yet another bland and redundant Bond "coffee table" book for the masses. Happily, this is not the case with "For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond" by Ben Macintyre, written on the centenary of the author's birth. Highly readable and enjoyable and chock full with full-color photos of props used throughout all 21 Bond films, this book is a comprehensive survey of not just of Bond's impact on fiction and the cinema, but a real in-depth analysis of the man who breathed live into one of popular culture's most endurable icons.

Much is written about Fleming's childhood, adolescence, education at Eton, relationships with family (brother Peter, noted travel writer), his military career, his closest friends (Ivar Bryce and Noel Coward), his love-hate relationships with wife Ann, and the author's affairs with numerous beautiful women which oddly resemble Fleming's fictional alter-ego. For those who wish to learn more about Bond and the writer who created him, this tome is a great springboard into the Bond phenomenon which has spanned over forty years.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book about the author, September 15, 2008

By 

Chris Marlowe (Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond (Hardcover)

I bought this book at the Imperial War Museum at their exhibit of Fleming and Bond. It is a good reflection of the information there, for anyone who couldn't see the exhibit, and even for those who could.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FOR YOUR EYES ONLY: IAN FLEMING AND JAMES BOND, April 13, 2010

By 

Rondal C. James "Rondal C James" (Akron, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond (Hardcover)

I enjoy anything about Bond and any information about Ian Fleming. James Bond has
been the foundation of my interest in series characters since 1965 when I purchased Thunderball, my first Bond novel after seeing the movie.