Every Thirty Years or so I re-read Ian Fleming's James Bond series, what can I say I'm a creature of habit. As I write this the Andy Griffith Show episode THE PICKLE STORY is playing on my iPad for probably the 300th time, but that’s fodder for another post.
I first read the Bond books as a teenager during one of my summers in Oregon. Those lazy days with little commitments other than getting together with some like minded artists to do silk-screens meant I had some downtime. The Bond books were (and are) light reading.
Written from @1953 to about 1963 they are very much a product of their time. They are dated and have extreme thoughts on race and a fair amount of sexism and violence. They are very straightforward in their descriptive narrative and they bear very little resemblance to the film series which started with DR NO in 1962.
Bond himself is described as tall with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He's ruggedly handsome but resembles .... Hoagy Carmichael.
I'm familiar with Carmichael from his role in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Carmichael seems to have gone to the Don Knotts gym because he looks to be about 130lbs soaking wet. But that didn't keep Ian Fleming from basing his spy on him.
Notice I called him a spy, not a super-spy like he's often referred to when someone is talking about the movies. The books are very different. Bond is more a normal man who gets himself through some difficult situations without Sean Connery's wit or Roger Moore's smirk.
The books run about 200 pages in length so you can get through all 14 pretty quickly if you decide to find something for your Summer reading.
They aren’t Raymond Chandler, they’re not even Mickey Spillane, but they are fun.