Before going to bed at night, I like to read something.
Until recently I had been reading the "Harry Potter" series. Reading Harry Potter was great from the beginning. Since I had started reading the series after the fifth book had been published, I had the luxury of being able to start reading a new book in the series in succession as I had finished reading each one.
Finishing Harry Potter left a bit of a void in my life. I needed something else to read. I decided that I would re-read the 007 books written by Ian Fleming. I had read a number of the 007 books by both Fleming and John Gardener. I had always found them interesting. Since it had been ten years since I had read Fleming's books, I decided to start with those.
I went to a bookstore at first to see if I could buy the books (I donated my original Bond books to a used bookstore.) There I suffered a bit of sticker-shock. Each book was priced at $11 each! With that in mind, my wife and I headed to the used book store to buy five titles at $2 each. (Go figure: five for less than the price of one!)
In my current spate of reading the 007 books, I have read "The Spy Who Loved Me," and I am working on "Doctor No." If I recall, my favorite book of the series was "You Only Live Twice." The books seem to be more interesting this time around. Maybe it is because I am less of an "academic" than I used to fancy myself as.
Reading "Dr. No" for the first time really impressed me. It is in that book that what has become "The James Bond Formula" begins to take shape. Something mysterious happens, Bond gets his assignment, there's a guy who will help him (who dies), there's a pretty girl, and there's a megalomaniac with a big plan. (I don't know about the explosion at the end yet. Like I said: I just started reading.)
So here's to James Bond! He is helping keep me occupied while waiting for the next Harry Potter book.