I’m working my way through Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels in publication order. Right now I’m on For Your Eyes Only. And I’ve gotta say, so far, the Bond of the books is way, way luckier than the Bond of the movies. In the books he scrapes by far too often on his frequent supernatural luck. It’s kinda disappointing after knowing the “nobody does it better” Bond for so long. Still, the books are entertaining, if for nothing else for their painstaking blow-by-blow accounting of tense struggles between Bond and the villains at mundane pursuits: the baccarat game with Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, the bridge game with Hugo Drax in Moonraker, the golf game with Goldfinger.