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The first Faulks' novel I read was Devil May Care , a story written to mark the centenary celebration of he creator of the James Bond character, Ian Fleming. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the book. Perhaps, I would have liked the movie better. This is due to the different demands I place on movies and books. I expect more intellectual discourse from books, and more action (though I hate war movies) from movies. Consequently, this book stayed on my bookshelf for almost three and half years. I was scared of opening it, until I ran-out of books to read. This is one of those books you read and begin to wonder why you have not read it all this while, especially when it has been staring you in the face for years, begging you to pick it up and at least read the first line. According to the blurb ' ...Sebastian Faulks creates a work of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms  and as sensuous as The English Patient .' And having read both books I should more than agr...

Jeane had once said that men were not like women, that once they had possessed a woman it was as thought nothing had happened and they just wanted to move on to another. [64] The difference between living and dying was not one of quality, only of time. [67] Constant shelling is a cure for impure thoughts. I never think of women. They belong to a different existence. [146] Men are such timid creatures, really, You have to be gentle with them. Make them feel safe. To begin with, anyway. [235] They boasted in a mocking way of what they had seen and done; but in their sad faces wrapped in rags he saw the burden of their unwanted knowledge. [270] It's better to have a malign providence than an indifferent one. [278] I heard a voice. There was something beyond me. All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond...flesh, the moment of being alive...then nothing. I had searched in superstition... Rats. But there was nothing. Then I h...

Devil May Care  (Double Day, 2008; 278) by Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming) was written to celebrate the centenary birthday celebration of Ian Fleming - the creator of the James Bond Character. I took this book because I wanted a light read to clear my mind after a difficult read. Yet, I was somewhat disappointed. Though I knew that James Bond is super-smart, I was still bored with his success rate. Things, though seemed to be difficult, intelligence and serendipity always worked together to extricate him from the most difficult of situations.  In this particular novel, James Bond was called out from his sabbatical leave to track and and learn more about the work of a mysterious Dr Julius Gorner. In tracking Gorner, he discovered, through the help of an equally mysterious young woman, that Dr Gorner is on to something extremely sinister. Something that could possibly lead to another world war. From Italy to England to France to Iran, expect 007 to bring you some ...