The Return
Issue #13 - January 2025
Has it really been eight months since we last published this newsletter? It sure has. But we have returned, and we made it back before the cinematic Bond…
Our apologies for the longer-than-anticipated delay. The move from Texas to Maryland and the renovation work on our new home turned out to be a bit more complicated and dragged out longer than we anticipated. But at last, we are settled in and once more surrounded by our 007-related books and collectibles, ready to get back to talking and writing about the world of James Bond.
To provide the right balance between several ongoing projects, including the new Bond-related book project mentioned below, we have decided to move this newsletter to a monthly schedule from now on.
During the hiatus, we also decided to close our @BondLexicon account over on Twitter/X, but you can still follow us for Daily Lexicon extracts, and posts from our Bond on the Cover series, plus general updates on Alan’s accounts on BlueSky and Threads or at our dedicated JamesBondLexicon accounts on Instagram and Tumblr.
It’s good to be back.
Alan & Gill
Bond Briefing
A massive thank you to all our subscribers to date and to the folks who signed up during our recent hiatus. It’s good to be back, and if you are reading this and haven’t joined our community yet, you can do so via the button below. It is FREE and you will then receive the newsletter in your email inbox the moment it’s published.
Casino Royale Book Project
As you may have seen on our various social media feeds we’re delighted to announce that Alan has signed a contract with McFarland Books to research and write “Too Many Bonds: The Making of Casino Royale ’67” (provisional title).
This will be the story of the strangest James Bond film ever made where the behind-the-scenes drama eclipsed the on-screen.
We aim to get the book out around the film’s 60th anniversary in spring 2027.
I’d like to send a heartfelt note of thanks to everyone who sent notes of congratulations on the announcement, and a special thanks to the various people who have generousluy offered to assist with articles and information from their personal Bond collections.
At the moment I am in the early stages of collecting sources and gathering lists for potential interviews and research visits.
The plan is to provide monthly updates on the project right here in this newsletter.
- Alan
Lexicon website updates
Over the last few weeks we’ve got back to adding updates to the James Bond Lexicon companion website
The latest updates include:
Adding several new 007-related volumes to the James Bond Bibliography, which now lists 272 Bond-related non-fiction books – many of which have links to our Bookshop.org online bookstore.
Bringing the Dynamite Comics page up to date.
Talking of comics we have now annotated the Myrmidon and For King And Country graphic novels and as a result added 18 new entries to the Lexicon Updates section.
There are also details (as far as we know) on the upcoming No Time To Die trading card set.
Bond Chronology
An extract from our current in-progress background project. - A detailed chronology of the James Bond phenomenon from creation until today, one month at a time.
June 1953
Fleming sails to the United States to sign a North American publishing deal with Macmillan.
Bond Blatherings
In the latest episode of the JAMES BOND vs SPY MOVIES show on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast Network we set up a “Battle of the Bonds’ as George Lazenby goes head-to-head with a pre-007 Roger Moore.
We go back to 1969 to compare George’s solo Bond outing, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, with Roger’s swinging-sixties thriller, Crossplot.
You can find out how they fared by following On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast on your podcast platform of choice, or check out the episode right HERE.
Bond Books
“Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 - Book Two - For King & Country” by Phillip Kennedy Johnson & Giorgio Spalletta.
Aside from having perhaps the longest title of any Bond graphic novel to date, this is a pretty action-packed read with Bond on the run from MI6 trying to stop the escalation of a global para-military organization.
You definitely need to have read the preceding volume that introduced the Myrmidon organization and several of the key players to be able to follow the plot here.
This concluding arc is more of a chess game of shifting loyalties with Bond never sure who he should trust at any given point.
Those all come together in an action packed climatic battle, but by the end the big reveals of who was playing who are obvious and I got irritated at Bond for not figuring out things a bit quicker.
But any story that had 007 at the wheel of a British Racing Green MINI Cooper gets a good mark from me!
Bond for Sale
Looking for a few James Bond book ideas? - How about checking out our dedicated 007 on-line bookstore?
Of course, there is always our own James Bond Lexicon which you can order from Bookshop.org just by clicking HERE or on the cover below.
Want to know what else are we working on?
For more information on what else we have going on with writing, podcasting, and general slice-of-life stuff, check out our regular FREE weekly CAN’T SEE THE FOREST newsletter
As always, thanks for joining us this month. If you know someone else who might enjoy the contents of this newsletter please feel free to share by clicking the button below.
See you next time
Alan J. Porter & Gillian J. Porter
The James Bond Lexicon (TM) newsletter is a production of Megrin Entertainment, a division of 4Js Group, LLC