• Love and Let Die by John Higgs
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Love and Let Die

Bond, the Beatles and the British Psyche
  • Author
    • John Higgs
£12.99
£12.99

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'Smart, analytical and enormously good fun' Stuart Maconie, Mail on Sunday
'Ingenious . . . conjures a whole cultural history of the past six decades' The Spectator
'Strikingly insightful . . . page after page of glorious anecdotes' The i Newspaper
'A book to leave you shaken and stirred' Independent
'Poignant and entertaining' Observer
'If you take popular culture seriously, this is the book for you' Jeremy Deller

Dr No, the first Bond film, and 'Love Me Do', the first Beatles record, were released on the same day. Most countries can only dream of creating a phenomenon on this scale; Britain produced two on one windy October afternoon. Told over sixty dramatic years, Love and Let Die is the story of two culture touchstones that continue to define our aspirations and fantasies; of opposing values, visions of Britain and ideas about male identity; and of how a clash between working class liberation and establishment control exploded on the global stage.
  • Published: Sep 14 2023
  • Pages: 528
  • 128 x 198mm
  • ISBN: 9781399600170
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Press Reviews

  • STUART MACONIE

    This is more than just a book about those two cultural colossi, the Beatles and Bond. It is that, and magnificently so, but it is also about class, art, masculinity, entitlement, politics, love and death. Humane, droll and wise, there is some brilliant apercu, revelation or connection on every page. A dazzling, daring, recondite and immensely readable pop culture critique

  • JEREMY DELLER

    If you take popular culture seriously, this is the book for you

  • SALENA GODDEN, author of MRS DEATH MISSES DEATH

    A triumphant work of truth, heart and soul. Love and Let Die is revolutionary, spirited, shaken and stirred
  • THE PSYCHOLOGIST
    Here is an author who constantly reaches out to the reader, grabs their attention and doesn't let go, finding connection in the most unexplored places . . . I was gripped throughout . . . Higgs finds beautiful threads everywhere . . . packed with small details and big ideas

  • Dominic Sandbrook

    SUNDAY TIMES
    Entertaining . . . an eccentric jaunt through the interwoven histories [of the Beatles and Bond]
  • INDEPENDENT
    A highly evocative picture of the 1960s . . . Love and Let Die is a book to leave you shaken and stirred

  • Frank Cotterell-Boyce

    OBSERVER
    Brilliant

  • Peter Carty

    i NEWSPAPER
    Strikingly insightful . . . [Higgs] gives us page after page of glorious anecdotes about Bond and The Beatles, revelations about one sparking insights into the other

  • Matthew Reisz

    OBSERVER
    Poignant and entertaining . . . sharp and pacy. . . Higgs is a lively writer and has assembled many intriguing nuggets from six decades of British popular culture

  • David Honigmann

    THE SPECTATOR
    Ingenious . . . Love and Let Die starts with a perfect coincidence [and] conjures a whole cultural history of the past six decades

  • Stuart Maconie

    MAIL ON SUNDAY
    A daring, dazzlingly entertaining pop cultural critique . . . smart analytical and enormously good fun. There's something provocative or revelatory on every page
  • WALL STREET JOURNAL
    In pairing these pop-cultural phenomena, Mr Higgs is onto something. A brilliant meander through the British male psyche . . . excellent and illuminating
  • TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
    Persuasive . . . The story of the power struggle between the working class and the establishment, as seen through the lens of the Beatles' records and the Bond films, is a fascinating one . . . entertaining

  • Sarah Gregory

    SHINDIG!
    Lives up to the hype . . . both captivating and thought-provoking. A riveting read