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007 James Bond: A Report
Here it is: the full fantastic lowdown on James Bond. An extraordinary expose of the life and love of Agent Double O Seven the most famous super-spy in modern fiction. This is a daringly documented and racy report on James Bond's phenomenal exploits, amazing genius, incredible career.
127 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 16, 2024
The first chapter is awful, with almost nothing at all to do with 007. Skip it and start reading with chapter two, which is right from the start exactly what I expected from this book! You get everything you could possibly need to know about Bond - food, drink, clothes, cars, guns, and women. And the information is quite thorough - culled from the first 11 Bond books that Fleming had published at the time of this book’s publication.
Chapter Three, “His Women”, is interesting in that the author gives a brief summary of the Bond books through the affairs 007 has with the women in each book. And in the fourth chapter, he does a similar style of summarizing the books, only this time through the viewpoint of the adversaries that Bond has to battle.
Overall, I enjoyed this book! It may be old and dated, but, well, so am I! And, the book gave me this cool Bond trivia tidbit: 007’s greatest nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld has the same birthday as Ian Fleming! And I liked the bit at the end with the watermark! "BOND EXTRA STRONG"!
Chapter Three, “His Women”, is interesting in that the author gives a brief summary of the Bond books through the affairs 007 has with the women in each book. And in the fourth chapter, he does a similar style of summarizing the books, only this time through the viewpoint of the adversaries that Bond has to battle.
Overall, I enjoyed this book! It may be old and dated, but, well, so am I! And, the book gave me this cool Bond trivia tidbit: 007’s greatest nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld has the same birthday as Ian Fleming! And I liked the bit at the end with the watermark! "BOND EXTRA STRONG"!
June 25, 2017
Read this back around when it first came out, so I must have been, what...13 or so? Back in my James Bond, Man from U.N.C.L.E. phase - what a weird kid I must have been. And what a weird kid I apparently still am...
This was the first "scholarly" look at James Bond, written while Fleming was still alive and scribbling, so doesn't cover the later books like You Only Live Twice, Man With the Golden Gun, and Octopussy, (the last two of which were published posthumously). It's also interesting to consider the stories in their written - rather than filmed - order, since the movie series is WAY out of line with how the books were published. Same for the characters and plots - these are the original book versions, with less action and more cartoonish bad guys than in the films, (I know, hard to believe). That said, Snelling does include a few comments on first two movies (which again, were the 6th and 5th books in the series), basically comments on casting (loved Bond and Moneypenny, but thought M was way too young and should have been played by C. Aubrey Smith - Google it for a quick laugh).
The book's divided into five sections- His Predecessors, His Image, His Women, His Adversaries and His Future - although His Women alone takes up nearly half the book. His Predecessors is interesting in that it reminds us just how OLD James Bond is, and what a ground-breaking character he initially was, (kind of like how people forget what a revolutionary movie the first "Star Wars" was when it came out). Bond is quaintly compared to "the Terrible Trio" of popular fiction between the two World Wars - Bulldog Drummond, Jonah Mansel and Richard Hannay, only one of who I've even ever heard of.
Anyway - fun to revisit, and interesting to learn that what were originally considered among the best books - Moonraker, for example - were turned into the worst movies. Which forces me to repeat something that my friends are probably sick of hearing - instead of trying to come up with new Bond stories like "Skyfall" and "SPECTRE," who doesn't Hollywood (or England or whatever) just remake some of the original movies - especially the terrible Roger Moore ones? There are good stories there, and other movies get remade all the time. I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to see a decent, non-campy version of Diamonds are Forever or Man With the Golden Gun?
This was the first "scholarly" look at James Bond, written while Fleming was still alive and scribbling, so doesn't cover the later books like You Only Live Twice, Man With the Golden Gun, and Octopussy, (the last two of which were published posthumously). It's also interesting to consider the stories in their written - rather than filmed - order, since the movie series is WAY out of line with how the books were published. Same for the characters and plots - these are the original book versions, with less action and more cartoonish bad guys than in the films, (I know, hard to believe). That said, Snelling does include a few comments on first two movies (which again, were the 6th and 5th books in the series), basically comments on casting (loved Bond and Moneypenny, but thought M was way too young and should have been played by C. Aubrey Smith - Google it for a quick laugh).
The book's divided into five sections- His Predecessors, His Image, His Women, His Adversaries and His Future - although His Women alone takes up nearly half the book. His Predecessors is interesting in that it reminds us just how OLD James Bond is, and what a ground-breaking character he initially was, (kind of like how people forget what a revolutionary movie the first "Star Wars" was when it came out). Bond is quaintly compared to "the Terrible Trio" of popular fiction between the two World Wars - Bulldog Drummond, Jonah Mansel and Richard Hannay, only one of who I've even ever heard of.
Anyway - fun to revisit, and interesting to learn that what were originally considered among the best books - Moonraker, for example - were turned into the worst movies. Which forces me to repeat something that my friends are probably sick of hearing - instead of trying to come up with new Bond stories like "Skyfall" and "SPECTRE," who doesn't Hollywood (or England or whatever) just remake some of the original movies - especially the terrible Roger Moore ones? There are good stories there, and other movies get remade all the time. I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to see a decent, non-campy version of Diamonds are Forever or Man With the Golden Gun?
August 9, 2020
Useless. There is no analysis in this sad excuse for a book. It is little more than synopses of the books written so far, 1964, first retelling the stories of the women Bond meets in the books, then the villains. For the most part Snelling treats the inconsistencies as if somehow everything is true instead of Fleming forgot and made mistakes or needed something to be true in a later book that was untrue earlier. It is OK to admit that, and Snelling very occasionally does but mostly tried to harmonize the unharmonizacle. Oh, why am I bothering. This book is crap.
June 7, 2017
I remember reading this in college, after it was lent to me by a mutual friend. It was nothing new, not really a bad read either.
The premise is that James Bond is real and they treat him as if needed a biography written on him.
Problem is that if you have read the Fleming books you already have the info from this book.
The premise is that James Bond is real and they treat him as if needed a biography written on him.
Problem is that if you have read the Fleming books you already have the info from this book.
May 31, 2012
Honestly, I think I expected alot more out of this book, it just seems like the book was full of guessing and information that you would already know if you read the Ian Flemings series.
April 15, 2025
In 1964 James Bond was the hottest think going. The books were bestsellers, and the movies were big hits. O. F. Snelling had written a few non-fiction books and worked as a rare book dealer. He did some research on the James Bond books for Ian Fleming and they became friends.
Snelling decided, with Fleming's blessing, to write a book about James Bond. As he started working on the book, he learned that Kingsley Amis, a much better-known writer, was working on the same thing. He rushed out his book in 1964 to get it released before Amis'.
Fleming, unexpectedly, died in August of 1964. By accident, Snelling's timing couldn't have been better. The book sold over a million copies and was translated into eight languages. Amis' book came out in 1965 and did not sell as well.
The book is a good professional job. Snelling takes the approach, by and large, that many writers took on Sherlock Holmes. He treats Bond as an actual person. He analyzes where he must have gone to college, what cars he had owned and what wine he liked when he was not drinking martinis. He has chapters on Bond's personality and quirks, his woman, and his adversaries.
He notices some interesting things. Bond has a thing for woman with short square cut nails with no polish. Snelling quotes a whole line up of Bondwoman who nails are described that way. Snelling suspects it may have been a preference of Fleming's. He notes that everyone calls Bond "James". No one, not even his girlfriends, brother or housekeeper, ever call him "Jim" or, God forbid, "Jimmy".
Snelling pads out this short book with some long plot summaries of the books and has very little to say about the movies, but this is a fun piece of pop analysis.
Snelling decided, with Fleming's blessing, to write a book about James Bond. As he started working on the book, he learned that Kingsley Amis, a much better-known writer, was working on the same thing. He rushed out his book in 1964 to get it released before Amis'.
Fleming, unexpectedly, died in August of 1964. By accident, Snelling's timing couldn't have been better. The book sold over a million copies and was translated into eight languages. Amis' book came out in 1965 and did not sell as well.
The book is a good professional job. Snelling takes the approach, by and large, that many writers took on Sherlock Holmes. He treats Bond as an actual person. He analyzes where he must have gone to college, what cars he had owned and what wine he liked when he was not drinking martinis. He has chapters on Bond's personality and quirks, his woman, and his adversaries.
He notices some interesting things. Bond has a thing for woman with short square cut nails with no polish. Snelling quotes a whole line up of Bondwoman who nails are described that way. Snelling suspects it may have been a preference of Fleming's. He notes that everyone calls Bond "James". No one, not even his girlfriends, brother or housekeeper, ever call him "Jim" or, God forbid, "Jimmy".
Snelling pads out this short book with some long plot summaries of the books and has very little to say about the movies, but this is a fun piece of pop analysis.
September 27, 2020
Good book for reviewing the main characters & plots from most of the books...deals only in passing with the films as only 2 had been released when this book was published in 1964.
December 8, 2021
Entirely ridiculous but fun to read, and nice to have a contemporary view on the Bond phenomenon as it was playing out in the 60s. Snelling gets an extra star for calling Bond a "daft clot."
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November 19, 2014goof
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews