After victory in World War II, Britain was a relieved but also a profoundly traumatized country. Simon Winder, born into this nation of uncertain identity, fell in love (as many before and since) with the man created as the antidote, a quintessentially British figure of great cultural significance: James Bond. Written with passion, wit and a great deal of personal insight and affection, this book is his wildly amusing attempt to get to grips with Bond’s legacy and the difficult decades in which it really mattered.

‘A more entertaining tour of 007, and the period associations that get sucked into Winder’s great comic intelligence, is hard to imagine’ London Review of Books

‘Diversions for the general reader and delights for the Bond enthusiast’ Sunday Times

‘A delightfully quirky, immediately engaging book’ Scotland on Sunday