“History is the error we are forever correcting.” The Tsar of Love and Techno is a series of interlocked stories spanning generations in Russia, Siberia, and Chechnya. It starts with a bang, telling stories of a Soviet censor who paints his brother, who was executed and whose existence was wiped out by the government, into … More The Tsar of Love and Techno, by Anthony Marra: Book Review
“The human eye senses movement before all else.” There’s a downside to writing a novel that hinges on some mysterious past event. On the one hand, if you don’t provide any answers your audience will be frustrated and rake you over the coals for lacking closure. On the other hand, oftentimes the answers never live … More All the Birds, Singing, by Evie Wyld: Book Review
“Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it.” This book is lucky I didn’t throw it across the room in frustration. In fact, the only reason this didn’t become the third book in history to hold that dubious distinction is that my husband was asleep in bed next … More The Spy Who Loved Me, by Ian Fleming: Book Review
Just like last time, this one is easy because the short story “Quantum of Solace” has absolutely nothing to do with the film adaptation aside from the title. The plots have no intersection, no similarities, and the only character who appears in both is James Bond himself. Let’s take a quick look at how they … More James Bond in Quantum of Solace: Book vs Movie
This is super easy because the short story “From a View to a Kill” has absolutely nothing to do with the movie “A View to a Kill.” They basically just coopted the title, dropped the word ‘from,’ and called it good. There are literally no similarities between both other than that title and the presence … More James Bond in A View to a Kill: Book vs Movie
This comparison is actually going to be easy, because unlike the adaptations we’ve already covered For Your Eyes Only took its inspiration from a short story. In order to flesh out the plot a bit, producers decided to fuse “For Your Eyes Only” with another story from the same collection entitled “Risico.” Let’s take a closer … More James Bond in For Your Eyes Only: Book vs Movie
Goldfinger is perhaps James Bond’s most popular adventure on film, but you may remember that the book left me cold. To be honest, I also find the film to be dated and silly, so I happen to go against popular opinion there. For the most part, the film adaptation stays fairly true to the book. … More James Bond in Goldfinger: Book vs. Movie
“It’s just that I’d rather die of drink than of thirst.” SMERSH, the Soviet spy organization that was the main villain in the early Bond books, has died an alarmingly sudden, anticlimactic death. Based on an actual organization whose name was coined by Josef Stalin himself, SMERSH had been officially shuttered in 1946, long before … More Thunderball, by Ian Fleming: Book Review
“’Do people always fall in love with things they can’t have?’ ‘Always,’ Carol said, smiling, too.” The Price of Salt is alternately billed as a tale of forbidden love and a tale of obsession. Only one of those actually fits the novel. Because while it is true that Therese Belivet allows her life to be completely … More The Price of Salt (or Carol), by Patricia Highsmith: Book Review
“Never send a man where you can send a bullet.” Unlike the previous James Bond books by Ian Fleming, For Your Eyes Only is a collection of five short stories, not a single adventure (two of the stories, “Quantum of Solace” and “The Hildebrand Rarity” had been previously published in Cosmopolitan and Playboy, respectively). Elements of the stories … More For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming: Book Review
Supposedly Fun 