Ian Fleming, Why a Gold Typewriter?

Fleming, Fergus.  The Man With The Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming's James Bond Letters.
          London: Bloomsbury, 2015.  ISBN: 978-1-4088-6547-7

"My name is Bond, James Bond." That iconic phrase has been heard in every James Bond movie and spoken in most of the books when James Bond introduces himself..  And in a way, The Man With The Golden Typewriter is an introduction to Ian Fleming's voice as he was writing James Bond.

Fergus Fleming has done the James Bond aficionado a huge favor by collecting the letters written by Ian Fleming or to Ian Fleming that relate to the James Bond books and the other books he wrote from 1952 to 1964.  The book is arranged with 17 chapters (one for each book Fleming wrote plus chapters regarding guns, correspondence with Raymond Chandler, and notes on Americanism in Bond tales) that discusses the book, major events that happened during the time of correspondence, and them the letters themselves.  At the end of the book is a listing of titles Fleming wrote and a list of James Bond movies current as of the time the book was published.

The book title comes from the fact that Ian Fleming acquired a gold-plated typewriter after he sold Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel (pp. 14, 16).  It is the little nuggets of knowledge found in the letters that make the book fun to read!  So reader does not need to be a James Bond or Ian Fleming scholar to appreciate the information found in this book.  If you enjoy James Bond, you are likely to enjoy The Man With The Golden Typewriter.