If the author's name sounds vaguely familiar, it is because he was the elder brother of James Bond writer Ian Fleming.
.jpg) |
| £2.25 from a branch (cannot recall which) of Oxfam |
The book tells of Times correspondent Peter Fleming's 3,500-mile journey in 1935 from Peking, as the Chinese city was then known in the West, to Kashmir, accompanied by a female Swiss travel writer-photographer.
Fleming's account is very much a piece of travel writing, but the region they passed through was experiencing turbulent times, not least thanks to what was then a confident Soviet Union and its agents, so there is plenty to interest anyone with an interest in (recent) history.
I enjoyed the book so much that writing this mini-review has prompted me to order two more Fleming travel books via Amazon: Brazilian Adventure, about his part in searching for a missing British adventurer, and One's Company, Fleming's account of traveling to China for The Times.
They have cost me rather more than £2.25, but I have high hopes of another two enjoyable reads.
Talking of James Bond, if you have never compared Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond to a real spy check out a news article dated 13 September 2024 in TheBurlingtonFiles website. Sadly for Fleming’s Bond, reality like exploding pagers and walkie-talkies is leaving espionage fiction in the ashtray of history. Why not forget about fictional agents like Bond and Bourne dashing to save the world from disaster and forget about CIA and MI6 officers reclining on their couches dreaming up espionage scenarios to try and thrill you. Check out what a real MI6 and CIA secret agent does nowadays. Why not browse through TheBurlingtonFiles website and read about Bill Fairclough's escapades when he was an active MI6 and CIA agent? The website is rather like an espionage museum without an admission fee ... and no adverts. You will soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won't want to exit.
ReplyDelete