Ninety-Nine Novels: Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation Podcast

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, the Burgess Foundation's Graham Foster talks to novelist Kim Sherwood about Goldfinger by Ian Fleming, the seventh novel in the James Bond series.

Published in 1959, it follows James Bond as he investigates the activities of the villainous Auric Goldfinger, a man obsessed with wealth and determined to steal the gold reserves of the United States. In his review in Ninety-Nine Novels, Burgess declared that Fleming's writing 'raised the standard of the popular story’, and he argued against the notion that Fleming was not a literary writer.

Ian Fleming was born in 1908, and worked as a journalist before the Second World War, during which he served in the Naval Intelligence Division, a posting which directly inspired the creation of James Bond. He wrote all of the Bond stories at his house, Goldeneye, in Jamaica, and while the spy thrillers dominated his writing career, he also wrote Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang. He died in 1964 at the age of 56.

Kim Sherwood is a novelist and lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. She published her first novel, Testament, in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award the following year. Her latest novel is Double or Nothing, the first in a new trilogy which follows a group of Double O agents as they search for a missing James Bond, is available now from HarperCollins.

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BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

By Ian Fleming:

From Russia, with Love (1957)

'Risico' in For Your Eyes Only (1960)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963)

Thrilling Cities (1963)

By others:

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1934)

Venetia by Georgette Heyer (1958)

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LINKS:

Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood at HarperCollins

Kim Sherwood on Twitter

Kim Sherwood on Instagram

Ian Fleming Website

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

The theme music is Anthony Burgess's Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor. It is performed by No Dice Collective.

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You can join the conversation and tell us which 100th book you would add to Burgess's list by using the hashtag #99Novels on Twitter.

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