Love and Let Die

Bond, the Beatles and the British Psyche

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Love and Let Die

By: John Higgs

Narrated by: John Higgs

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About this listen

The Beatles are the biggest band there has ever been. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins. Dr No, the first Bond film, and 'Love Me Do', the first Beatles record, were both released on the same day - Friday, 5 October 1962. Most countries can only dream of a cultural export becoming a worldwide phenomenon on this scale. For Britain to produce two on the same windy October afternoon is unprecedented.

Bond and the Beatles present us with opposing values, visions of Britain and ideas about male identity. LOVE AND LET DIE is the story of a clash between working-class liberation and establishment control, and how it exploded on the global stage. It explains why James Bond hated the Beatles, why Paul McCartney wanted to be Bond and why it was Ringo who won the heart of a Bond Girl in the end.

Told over a period of sixty dramatic years, this is an account of how two outsized cultural monsters continue to define our aspirations and fantasies and the future we are building. Looking at these touchstones in this new context will forever change how you see the Beatles, the James Bond films and six decades of British culture.

This audiobook features an extra interview with I AM THE EGGPOD host Chris Shaw

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Critic reviews

A daring, dazzlingly entertaining pop cultural critique . . . smart analytical and enormously good fun. There's something provocative or revelatory on every page (Stuart Maconie)

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

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

A highly evocative picture of the 1960s . . . Love and Let Die is a book to leave you shaken and stirred

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 (STUART MACONIE)

If you take popular culture seriously, this is the book for you (JEREMY DELLER)

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

In pairing these pop-cultural phenomena, Mr Higgs is onto something. A brilliant meander through the British male psyche . . . excellent and illuminating

A triumphant work of truth, heart and soul. Love and Let Die is revolutionary, spirited, shaken and stirred (SALENA GODDEN, author of MRS DEATH MISSES DEATH)

Brilliant (Frank Cotterell-Boyce)

Entertaining . . . an eccentric jaunt through the interwoven histories [of the Beatles and Bond]

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

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

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

Most relevant

I liked this book which is a very good and interesting take on how James Bond was for the establishment and The Beatles were for everyone. Recommended.