The Real James Bond
A True Story of Identity Theft, Avian Intrigue, and Ian Fleming
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Narrated by:
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Raphael Corkhill
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By:
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Jim Wright
About this listen
"Whatever happened to him actually outshines anything I’ve had my James Bond do." (Ian Fleming)
James Bond: author, ornithologist, marksman, and...identity-theft victim? When James Bond published his landmark book, Birds of the West Indies, he had no idea it would set in motion events that would link him to the most iconic spy in the Western world and turn his life upside down. Born into a wealthy family but cut off in his early 20s, James Bond took off to the West Indies in search of adventure. Armed with arsenic and a shotgun, he took months-long excursions to the Caribbean to collect material for his iconic book, Birds of the West Indies, navigating snake-infested swamps, sleeping in hammocks, and island-hopping on tramp steamers and primitive boats.
Packed with interviews with Bond's colleagues, here is the real story of the pipe-smoking, ruthless ornithologist who introduced the world to the exotic birds of the West Indies.
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McPhee is the Craft
- By Darwin8u on 09-19-17
By: John McPhee
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The Glossy Years
- Magazines, Museums and Selective Memoirs
- By: Nicholas Coleridge
- Narrated by: Nicholas Coleridge
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Over his 30-year career at Condé Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague.
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A superfun inside look @ world of magazine editors
- By AminaRuhle on 10-05-20
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Author in Chief
- The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
- By: Craig Fehrman
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In Craig Fehrman’s groundbreaking work of history, Author in Chief, the story of America’s presidents and their books opens a rich new window into presidential biography. From volumes lost to history - Calvin Coolidge’s Autobiography, which was one of the most widely discussed titles of 1929 - to ones we know and love - Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, which was very nearly never published - Fehrman unearths countless insights about the presidents through their literary works.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 03-12-20
By: Craig Fehrman
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Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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The Man Who Loved China
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair. He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire.
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turn your watch back 70 years
- By Andy on 05-22-08
By: Simon Winchester
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The Dinosaur Artist
- Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy
- By: Paige Williams
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia—a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot).
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More filler than Joan Rivers’ face.
- By Brandi on 03-13-19
By: Paige Williams
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Ex Libris
- Confessions of a Common Reader
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Anyone who has ever loved a book will relish this playful, yet deeply literate collection of essays celebrating the joy of reading. From building castles with books as a child, to the trauma of joining her library with her husband's, the author reveals, with much warmth and humor, the intimate details of her lifelong affair with books. For Anne Fadiman, books are not built for function, and certainly not for decoration. They are close personal friends who never fail to delight and amaze.
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Reading IS fun!
- By Diana on 04-14-05
By: Anne Fadiman
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The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
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Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
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Between Man and Beast
- An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World By Storm
- By: Monte Reel
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1856 Paul Du Chaillu marched into the equatorial wilderness of West Africa determined to bag an animal that, according to legend, was nothing short of a monster. When he emerged three years later, the summation of his efforts only hinted at what he'd experienced in one of the most dangerous regions on earth. Armed with an astonishing collection of zoological specimens, Du Chaillu leapt from the physical challenges of the jungle straight into the center of the biggest issues of the time.
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Extraordinary book! Masterpiece.
- By BVerité on 04-23-13
By: Monte Reel
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The Map Thief
- The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
- By: Michael Blanding
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers - both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.
Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief - until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library.
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A Study of the Strangeness of People
- By Carole T. on 12-10-14
By: Michael Blanding
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Shakespeare's Library
- Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature
- By: Stuart Kells
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.
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Dismissed Mary Sidney Herbert without explanation
- By Lisa on 07-30-19
By: Stuart Kells
What listeners say about The Real James Bond
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stokes
- 09-22-20
Exciting and Interesting!
I really enjoyed this biography of the real man who gave his name to the fictional spy. He led a life of adventure and intrigue fit to rival his spy counterpart - especially if you find birds endlessly intriguing. And even if you haven’t looked at a bird in your life, there is plenty more in this book to teach you a thing or two about espionage, history, and the evolution of conservation in the last century. A delightful listen!
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