February 16, 2012 
Good Morning! Late last week, I completed my reading of Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die. Live and Let Die is Ian Fleming’s second book about famed British secret agent 007, James Bond. In this book, Bond is on a mission to eliminate a major SMERSH agent, Mr. Big. Of course, Live and Let Die was the first Roger Moore movie based on this second book.
In this book, Bond hooks up with CIA agent Felix Leiter, to begin with, in Harlem, to begin to eliminate Mr. Big from the ranks of SMERSH. What ensues is a rather slow and tedious journey to finally dispatching Mr. Big. I found the book differed from the movie in significant areas. First, where in the movie Mr. Big dealt in poppy, in the book, he dealt in gold coins and fear. Another major difference is that Fleming depicted one Solitaire as a scared woman who had no choice in her station in Mr. Big’s operation. I definitely didn’t get that impression from the movie.
I found this book read a bit slower than Casino Royale did. I also didn’t find myself as engrossed with Live and Let Die as I was with Casino Royale. I found myself wanting the book to end so I could move to the next book on my list. I didn’t absolutely dislike the book, it simply isn’t one of the better ones I’ve read. It just seemed like, that the beginning and end were done well, but Fleming just put filler in between the rest of it, and it just seemed like fluff.
I’ll reserve judgment on how this book stands with the other Bond books as I get to them, but overall, not very impressed with Live and Let Die and I was glad to be done with it. If you’ve read Live and Let Die, I’d love to hear what your thoughts were!
Beltwayliterature 
Don’t laugh, but didn’t they parody Casino Royale on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation? (My dad used to make me watch it as a kid, and I confess, I became hooked! I love it now.) 😀
I see you’re going to be reading Bernard Cornwell! I have a good friend in the UK who highly recommends the Sharpe series. I’m curious if you’ll be able to tell that the American Civil War is depicted by a British writer. My friend obviously can’t tell, being British. 😀
I know exactly what episode you’re talking about! I believe it’s a second season episode at that! STNG is a pretty good show, but I seem to like Deep Space Nine a bit better!
Yeah, I’m going to be reading Bernard Cornwell. My sister picked the book for the informal reading club my siblings and I have going on. It looks like it very well could be an interesting book! I’ll definitely have to see if I can tell about the Civil War being depicted by a British writer. Wonder what that’s like actually!
Ha! 😀 –
Classic! I love it!