Customer Reviews
It's a Fleming & Bond Blockbuster - By: Dr Blockbuster, 30 Aug 2008 
Dr Blockbuster got a signed copy when Ben MacIntyre was at the Edinburgh International Book Festivalin August. The title says it all ... a beautiful blend of Ian Fleming & James Bond, containing enlightening background & many interesting facts, unknown EVEN to Dr Blockbuster! Merde!
Add this to your Bond bookshelf now!
For the uninitiated into world of Fleming..... - By: K. M Pizzi, 29 Jul 2008 
As one who studied Fleming's work extensively as a graduate student & later publishing a thesis on the writer's impact on pop culture of the period, I must admit I was a bit skeptical about yet another bland & redundant Bond "coffee table" book for the masses. Happily, this is not the case with "For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming & James Bond" by Ben Macintyre, written on the centenary of the author's birth. Highly readable & enjoyable & chock full with full-color photos of props used throughout all 21 Bond films, this book is a comprehensive survey of not just of Bond's impact on fiction & the cinema, but a real in-depth analysis of the man who breathed live into one of popular culture's most endurable icons.
Much is written about Fleming's childhood, adolescence, education at Eton, relationships with family (brother Peter, noted travel writer), his military career, his closest friends (Ivar Bryce & Noel Coward), his love-hate relationships with wife Ann, & the author's affairs with numerous beautiful women which oddly resemble Fleming's fictional alter-ego. For those who wish to learn more about Bond & the writer who created him, this tome is a great springboard into the Bond phenomenon which has spanned over forty years.
The reailty behind the legend - By: C. J. Husing, 24 Jul 2008 A kazilion authors have attempted to connect the real life of Ian Fleming to his famous fictional creation. Macintyre does an excellent job of summarizing the life of Fleming & the inspirations bothin his personality &in his experience that led to the famous mythical world of 007.
As you would expect of an Imperial War Museum production, there are excellent photos from the archives as well as artifacts from the James Bond movies.
Short but successful attempt to explore where Fleming's world ended and Bond's began - By: Mr. Nicholas J Robertson, 16 Jun 2008 A book written to accompany an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, it is, according to author Ben Macintyre, neither a biography of Ian Fleming nor a "Biography" of James Bond, but "a personal investigation into the intersection of two lives, one real & one fictional".
There certainly are many elements of a biography of Fleming. We learn of his father's death, when he was just nine, on the Western Front, & of his relationship with his domineering mother Evelyn, referred to by him & his brothers, interestingly, as "M". Fleming's search for a career that combined high earnings with a relaxed lifestyle, his compulsive womanising, his taste for the good things of life, but also his war servicein naval intelligence, are all covered, as a backdrop to the elements of Bond's character. The many actual people who may have contributed to Bond as well as Fleming, including his late father, Valentine Fleming, his brother Peter, also involvedin intelligence work, a variety of commandos & Special Forces types like Fitzroy MacLean, & a similar treatment to the other principal charactersin the books, like M & Miss Moneypenny. The way that Fleming adopted names from acquaintances for other characters is fascinating: he was almost sued by the architect Erno Goldfinger for the misappropriation of his one.
While Macintyre comments primarily on the books, he also bringsin the films. I suspect that part of the reason for this was that it gave the book (and the exhibition) much more material to display, but on the whole inclusion of film material is not intrusive & allows Macintyre to point out the differences. For example, while there was a Q-Sectionin the books, & an Armourer, Major Boothroyd (named after one of Fleming's correspondents, who persuaded him that a Beretta was no suitable pistol for a secret agent), it was onlyin the films that these were combined into the character "Q".
If you have read one of the biographies of Ian Fleming (and Macintyre, by the way, recommends those by John Pearson & Andrew Lycett) then this book may seem a little thin. If, like me, you have not, then this book is an excellent, easy to read starting point to looking behind the character of James Bond to the man who created him. Macintyre succeeds,in this short but excellently illustrated book,in showing us where Fleming's world ended & Bond's began.
