I was a James Bond nerd when I was a kid. I was around ten years old when the movie Dr. No was released in America, and I had read all of the Ian Fleming 007 novels that had been published by that point. My parents didn’t seem to mind that I was reading “adult” literature (and in fact, my mother accompanied me to Dr. No, the last time I can recall going to the theater with her). For the novels, I started at the beginning, with Casino Royale, and have not forgotten to this day the horrible scene where the villain, Le Chiffre, tortures 007 by whacking Bond’s testicles with a carpet beater (no less an expert than Raymond Chandler admitted that scene “still haunts me”). It didn’t stop me, though, from devouring the rest of the novels, and I jumped at the chance to see Bond on the big screen.

If only that were the extent of my James Bond obsession. But no, I didn’t stop there. I had 007 cologne (not sure why I needed this when I was a pre-teen) and a James Bond board game that at least didn’t smell bad. I even took to guarding my possessions using a trick I had picked up from a Fleming novel. Before leaving a room, Bond plucked a hair from his head and placed it across a crack in a door. When he returned and the hair was gone, he knew his room had been searched. Being  …