Casino Royale
Anyone else looking forward to seeing the new
James Bond movie opening on Friday? Casino Royale is the first of
Ian Fleming’s Bond books. I loved the originals. His writing was taut, fresh and full of the flavor of the 50’s, including a rather misogynistic view of women. Still, the Fleming stories were so much more interesting than the Hollywood versions made of them. I think I heard or read somewhere that the intention is to follow the book on this one. I hope so. I’d love nothing better than to see Sony remake the entire catalogue with less flash/bang special effects and more attention to the human element. I have every Fleming book and then all the sequels written first by John Gardner and later by Raymond Benson. The only thing I’m having trouble with is a blonde Bond. The books always talk about that unruly “comma” of dark hair—the teasers I’ve seen show a very blonde Daniel Craig. And he’s shorter than the other Bond’s, too. I know through the magic of Hollywood any actor can look tall, but Connery, Brosnan and Moore were all at least 6’. Craig is 5’11”. Oh well, maybe I’ve given this entirely too much thought.
My good friend Margie Lawson and I had lunch this week with author-extraordinaire
Joan Johnston. Here’s a woman who has over 10 million books in print and has been on national best seller lists more than fifty times. She let us pick her brain about the writing life, including marketing and promoting. She is a dynamo. We had great steaks and great conversation and I appreciate her taking time with this fledgling. To top it off, she’s a Bronco fan, too. The woman has it all.
Finished reading
Charlaine Harris’ newest, GRAVE SURPRISE. If you haven’t discovered this series you’ve missed a treat. Her protagonist, Harper Connelly, was struck by lightning and left with the ability to find corpses. She and her half-brother, Tolliver Lang, make their living from finding the dead. Grave Surprise follows last year’s debut book GRAVE SIGHT and picks up where that story left off, including a surprise connection between that case and Harper’s new assignment at an old cemetery on a college campus. Charlaine is another dynamo—award winner, best seller many times over, and all around great gal.