Ian Fleming (1908-1964)
Filed under the name Ian · June 17, 2026
Ian Fleming created James Bond, and whatever you think of spies and shaken martinis, the man built one of the most successful literary franchises there's ever been, still going strong generations after he first put pen to paper. I never had much use for that kind of book myself — give me a good clean mystery or a Western over gadgets and glamour any day — but I taught third grade too long not to recognize what makes a story stick with people across that many decades. It isn't really the gadgets. It's that Fleming gave readers somebody who always, always found a way through, no matter how impossible the spot looked at the start of the chapter. Children need stories like that too, just simpler ones, somebody who doesn't give up when things look bad. I used to remind my class of that every time we hit a hard word or a hard problem: the story's not over just because this page is difficult. Fleming built a whole career on that same plain little truth, dressed up fancier than I would have dressed it, but the same truth underneath.