Amazon.com: Ian Fleming: Andrew Lycett: Books

Review
"As good as any Bond novels, it proves that facts can be equally as fascinating as any fiction" SUNDAY MERCURY "This is a revealing biography of a man who lived life in the fast lane" GOOD BOOK GUIDE

Product Description

Updated to include new information on the Bond phenomenon, the definitive biography of author Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond 007, also includes information about Fleming's career in naval intelligence where he masterminded many top-secret operations. With Daniel Craig earning critical acclaim as the spy and signed for several Bond movies, both the character and his creator remain subjects of enduring popularity. Boasting an extraordinary cast of characters, this is biography at its best—part history, part gossip, and part an informed reassessment of one of this century's most celebrated yet mysterious personalities.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Orion Publishing (April 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1857997832
ISBN-13: 978-1857997835
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #541,544 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Citations (learn more)

13 books cite this book:

Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film by Wesley Britton on 6 pages
Goldfinger: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide by Adrian Turner on page 36, page 167, and Back Matter
Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood by Nancy Schoenberger in Back Matter
The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Martin Priestman on page 132
Barrack-Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling in Front Matter

See all 13 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	76% buy the item featured on this page: Ian Fleming 3.3 out of 5 stars (3) $14.96
	7% buy The Life of Ian Fleming (Coronet Books) 3.8 out of 5 stars (4)
	7% buy The Bond Code: The Dark World of Ian Fleming and James Bond 3.7 out of 5 stars (6) $12.74
	6% buy For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond 4.5 out of 5 stars (2) $23.09

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

james bond(2)

007(1)

biography(1)

ian fleming(1)

See all 5 tags...

Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search

No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars overly long, tedious, not very readable, August 23, 2008

By	cxlxmx - See all my reviews

I had already read the John Pearson biography of Ian Fleming (Alias James Bond-The Life Of Ian FLeming.) when I picked up this Andrew Lycett biography. Because blurbs and reviews of this biography praised it for the access Lycett had, I was looking forward to something more about Fleming's internal life and motivations and more details and first-person accounts of the interesting experiences Fleming did have. I was severely disappointed.

In the Acknowledgements section of this book Lycett thanks Pearson "for material he collected for his book The Life of Ian Fleming." The influence of the Pearson material seems prevalent throughout. Pearson seems to have set the standard for the depth of investigation and the extent of informed speculation, and there are even trivialities that are related in such a way that it seems Lycett and Pearson were writing from the same material. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Lycett almost seems to have simply removed the whitewash from Pearson's book.

The whitewash is mostly related to sexual matters. For example, Pearson makes it clear that Fleming seduced many women, but Lycett relates the seduction of the wife of one Fleming's friends, soon after the marriage, in which Fleming was supposed to be best man. Likewise, Pearson surgically removed Blanche Blackwell from Fleming's life and obscured many unsavory facts about Fleming's wife Ann. Lycett puts these matters on display, but there is no probing of them for understanding. Fleming was involved with a number of Jewish women, made literary connections with progressives and communists, and lived by choice in Jamaica, but was pseudo-conservative, staunchly pro-British and pro-empire. How were all these things related in Fleming's psychology?

The parallels between the Pearson and Lycett biographies also extend to the things left out. Take, for example, the occult and homosexuality. Fleming's novel "Live and Let Die" makes his interest in these two topics clear. Pearson mentions in passing a personal connection with (bisexual occultist) Aleister Crowley. The book jacket to the Lycett mentions Fleming's interest in astrology. The Lycett book contains a quote from Fleming's wife Ann referring to his "homosexuality." But neither Pearson or Lycett discusses these connections with any depth. Astrology does not even appear in Lycett's extensive index, despite its appearance on the jacket.

On the flip side, as other Amazon reviewers have noted, Lycett's book suffers from an overabundance of useless detail. There are so many small ones--and Lycett writes so implicatively--that "important" facts are often glossed over. For example, in a web article, I found Lycett referring to Lisl Jokl as Fleming's first love, although that fact is totally lost in the biography. It's hard to understand what Lycett's motivation was in writing. There is no Fleming studies industry that is going to benefit from so much detail, and it is a mistake from a literary perspective. Contrary to what some other reviewers have written, Fleming did not live an interesting life. In fact, much of the book is filled with the tedium of betrayals, double-betrayals, law-suits, failed business ventures and the like. And the interesting parts, such as Fleming's dinner with JFK, are often given surprisingly little attention. Pearson dealt with all the boredom in Fleming's life by writing thematically rather than strictly chronologically, showing how Fleming's life influenced the James Bond novels. That was a much better technique.

Another drawback to Lycett's book is his scant use of quotation. Pearson quotes a paragraph from a doctor's report on Fleming's heart, whereas Lycett deals with the same episode by summarizing in his own words. That technique is fine for short and/or topically-oriented works, but in a "definitive biography" of great length, an author needs to let the cast speak in the their own voices as much as possible. This can get frustrating, as in Lycett's very meager treatment of Operation Golden Eye (of interest to 007 fans, of course): "His letter to [Admiral] Godfrey from the British Embassy on his return to Lisbon underlined his extraordinary autonomy and initiative." What? What did he write to Admiral Godfrey?

My sense is that most people who would be interested in reading this book would end up skimming large portions of it or getting bogged down and not finishing. Although I understand that the desire of 007 fans to ogle isn't justification for exposing people's lives in a biography, one has to ask why a biography of Ian Fleming would have been written were it not for 007. To my mind, although Lycett's book is large and, in some ways, more honest than Pearson's, a definitive biography of Ian Fleming is yet to be written.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Man Behind 007 & The Bio Behind the Myth, January 17, 2007

By	The JuRK (Our Vast, Cultural Desert) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This biography is worth reading for two very good reasons:

The most obvious is to get a look at the man who created one of the greatest iconic figures of the 20th Century. "Bond, James Bond" is usually on every list of popular and enduring characters from the previous century and his simple introduction is normally cited as the most memorable movie line in cinema history. The 007 machine is still very much alive in the 21st Century with all of Fleming's adventures in print and the secret agent still drawing millions at the box office with last year's "Casino Royale."

The second fascinating reason for reading this biography is the author's frank and open access to Fleming's family and friends. A great deal is revealed through their interviews as well as their diaries and letters.

When I read through the reviews for the hardcover edition, I found some complaints about the constant name-dropping throughout the book, but that was their world. Ian's wife Ann seemed to live to socialize and while most of the names probably mean very little to most readers today, some still jump out--from mobsters like Lucky Luciano to real intelligence figures like Allen Dulles, former CIA boss.

This is a sharp, genuine look at Bond's creator after decades of mythmaking about the life of Ian Fleming.

As the quote on the cover says, "This is an exemplary biography, beautifully written, fast-paced and extremely perceptive."

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great read for the serious Fleming fan, September 15, 2008

By	The Critic "The critic" (San Jose, California USA) - See all my reviews

This was a fantastic read. It took me a couple of chapters before I got into the flow of the book (hence why I rated this a 4 star not 5 star rating), but once the biography picked up where the Bond novels begin, I found myself rereading the Bond novels along with the biography. By reading the biography this way, it will enhance your reading pleasure. Lycett's book will unravel the "how and why" Ian wrote what he did as well as suggest who the real people were behind the villains and characters-including 007 and how the number came to being. It also goes into the explanation of how Ian approached the movie industry and why Dr. No ended up being the first of the books to be turned into a cinematic experience. The little details that Lycett added to this book only enhanced the end product. Upon finishing it (and the novels), I felt I knew a great deal about the man who created one of the greatest literary and cinematic fictional characters of modern times.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; }

Customer Discussions

Beta (What's this?)

New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.

This product's forum (0 discussions)

	Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
	No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

[Cancel]

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
history Most important drug user? Why?	8175	1 hour ago
history Islam: the Facade and the Facts	563	1 hour ago
history Why does Holocaust Denial Exist?	5174	3 hours ago
history What if Israel ceased to be. . . ?	46	3 hours ago
history What was the Worst Military Defeat in History?	2	4 hours ago
biography What are some of the best biographies of women you've ever read.	45	10 hours ago
biography what is the best biography you've ever read?	399	16 hours ago

The James Bond community

Latest activity 28 minutes ago

1,713 customers have contributed 728 products, 198 lists & guides and more...

› Explore the community

The Biography community

Latest activity 53 minutes ago

8,492 customers have contributed 9,088 products, 532 lists & guides and more...

› Explore the community

Explore more

› See all Customer Communities

› Your communities

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.

› See featured Amapedia.com articles

Listmania!

The Complete 007: Part II - Books: The Ian Fleming Years: A list by Tom Benton
bond books: A list by L. Dodge "yoda"
Rediscover the Original Bond, James Bond: A list by John Cox

Create a Listmania! list

So You'd Like to...

Study the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: A guide by CronanBor "cronanbor"
read the James Bond books (in chronological order): A guide by Derek G
Rent a Cabin in the Mountains and Read Some Thrillers: A guide by Katie Osborne

Create a guide

Look for Similar Items by Category

Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > British
Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Journalists
Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Sports & Entertainment
Books > History > Europe > England
Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > British

Work and Roll with DEWALT

While supplies last, enjoy special pricing on the DEWALT work site radio. Power it and you'll be rockin' and chargin' your way through a hard day of work.

›Shop more chargers and radios