I would love to listen to NPR while doing all of the driving I do, but I’m always traveling across radio station coverage areas and it’s hard to keep a station in tune for a whole show. Consequently I download and listen to their “Most Emailed Stories” podcast… it’s the “best of” from the day before. I also listen to the NPR Books, Pop Culture and Food podcasts. Sometimes, I get a little behind. This week, I’ve listened to twenty or thirty NPR podcasts and I’ve noticed a trend.

Manly Men are back. The 100th Anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth occurred recently, so there have been a lot of features on the Bond books, including a look at America’s own “Q Division,” why shaken martinis actually are better than stirred, and, of course, the new Bond book from Sebastian Faulks. In the midst of all this, NPR’s In Character series also did a piece on Philip Marlowe.

It occurred to me, I’ve never read a book by Fleming or Chandler… something I’m going to rectify. I don’t have any Chandler in the house, but I happen to have Casino Royale, and I’m going to start it tonight!

[Note: We always link to U.S. editions and that Casino Royale cover up there certainly is cool, but how amazing are these recently revamped British editions? You can click on each one to see it larger than life!]
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 We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, Penguin trade paperback, $13.00, 978-0-14-200202-5
Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, Doubleday hardcover, $24.95, 978-0-385-52428-5
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Vintage trade paperback, $13.95, 978-0-394-75828-2
(all information is for the U.S. editions).