And here we all are scratching our heads wondering what on earth to get ‘him indoors’ that isn’t the same old thing yet again. Socks or tie?
Well, we can’t turn him into James Bond (and anyway he thinks he already is). Neither can we buy him a car with an ejector seat and all else, but something not to be missed is the 3rd in the Folio Society’s glorious James Bond series
Dr No Ian Fleming Illustrated by Fay Dalton
The Spectator said: ‘Fleming, by reason of his plausibility, sense of pace, brilliant descriptive powers and superb imagination, provides sheer entertainment’
And this edition proves that he, and Fay Dalton deliver in spades. Because Dr No features the talents of Fay Dalton, who has provided seven images and a stunning slipcase portraying the unforgettable Honeychile Rider.
With a torture-loving villain, a feisty female lead and death-defying feats including a battle with a giant squid, Dr No sees Fleming revelling in the dramatic appeal of his indestructible hero. Having recently recovered from his near-fatal poisoning at the end of From Russia with Love, Bond is sent to Jamaica for a working holiday. To his annoyance, his mission– to investigate the disappearance of two fellow mi6 operatives – sounds ‘rather like the soft life’.
But the elegant Strangways and his pretty young colleague have not eloped, as M believes. Dispatched by sinister assassins, their bodies lie in a single coffin at the bottom of the Mona Reservoir. And so Bond enters an exotic and perilous world, manipulated by the sadistic Dr Julius No from the desolate Crab Key island.
The Bond novels were born in Jamaica. Returning from a wartime conference there in 1943, Fleming declared: ‘When we’ve won this blasted war, I’m going to live in Jamaica. Just live in Jamaica and lap it up, and swim in the sea and write books.’ True to his word, he built Goldeneye,a clifftop estate on the north coast, and wrote his novels there. Dr No is scattered with evocative descriptions of ‘one of the most fertile islands in the world’, its ‘stuffy, velvet heat’, ‘night-scented jasmine’ and ‘violet shadows’ bringing the island to vivid life as the setting for one of Fleming’s most revered novels.
Dr No Folio Society Bound in blocked cloth. Set in Miller Text. 256 pages. 7 full-page colour illustrations. Pictorial slipcase. 9″x 6¼”. The Folio Society
UK £34.95 US $59.95 Can $74.95 Aus $76.95
Also available in this series are Casino Royale and From Russia with Love.
From Russia with Love Ian Fleming Illustrated by Fay Dalton
RRP: £34.95 from The Folio Society
Casino Royale Ian Fleming Introduced by John Banville Illustrated by Fay Dalton
RRP: £34.95 from The Folio Society
