Love and Let Die
On sale
15th September 2022
Price: £12.99
‘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.
‘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.
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Reviews
A triumphant work of truth, heart and soul. Love and Let Die is revolutionary, spirited, shaken and stirred
In pairing these pop-cultural phenomena, Mr Higgs is onto something. A brilliant meander through the British male psyche . . . excellent and illuminating
A highly evocative picture of the 1960s . . . Love and Let Die is a book to leave you shaken and stirred
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
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
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
Ingenious . . . Love and Let Die starts with a perfect coincidence [and] conjures a whole cultural history of the past six decades
Poignant and entertaining . . . sharp and pacy. . . Higgs is a lively writer and has assembled many intriguing nuggets from six decades of British popular culture
Strikingly insightful . . . [Higgs] gives us page after page of glorious anecdotes about Bond and The Beatles, revelations about one sparking insights into the other
Lives up to the hype . . . both captivating and thought-provoking. A riveting read
A daring, dazzlingly entertaining pop cultural critique . . . smart analytical and enormously good fun. There's
something provocative or revelatory on every page
Brilliant
If you take popular culture seriously, this is the book for you
Entertaining . . . an eccentric jaunt through the interwoven histories [of the Beatles and Bond]