To my surprise, this was a really good story! After all the James Bond movies I've seen, I decided to actually read one of the books. Wow! There's actually a lot of good spy craft, the plot makes sense, and the characters much more believable. I was really surprised! The technology is dated, obviously, and I could do without his theory on lesbians, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless!

A good ole fashioned penis measuring contest between Bond and his villain de jeur, Aurich Goldfinger.

Ever the conjurer of DC comics quality bad guys, Ian Fleming has here crafted a gem with Goldfinger – a Ted Nugent capitalist’s capitalist who lives to win at everything. And if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying. And we get a double helping of MALEVOLENT as his odd job man – Oddjob – is a Nietzschean superman Asian Mike Tyson action hero figure of badassery.

Good sports writing is an under appreciated field of endeavor in literature and Fleming demonstrates his ability with the long chapter devoted to the round of golf between Bond and Goldfinger. Clearly a golfer, Fleming fills this memorable scene with enough game jargon to impress any low handicapper. More than that, Fleming is able to aptly convey the primal competitive urges between these two alpha males that is contextually relevant to the story. (Bond is a 9 handicap BTW).

And of course the Bond girl – this time with as AWESOME a character name as anything this side of Neal Stephenson’s Hiro Protagonist:

Pussy Galore.

Bond and Goldfinger play cat and mouse and then mano y mano in a high stake bid to wreck the global economy through a spectacular and evil plot.

Critics may cite Fleming’s racist and sexist worldview and his over the top commentary in this visit with Bond, but if you’re easily offended you likely are not reading Fleming anyway. There’s also some elements that stretch the believability meter into the red, keeping this from being great.

All considered, good fun in one of the most memorable Bond novels.

The 7th book in the James Bond series by Ian Fleming.
No real surprises what you see is what you get but a good entertaining read all the same.

This was a weird book. I'm not a fan of James Bond and I can only remember two scenes from the movie, but I enjoyed reading this book.

There's a lot of misses, like why Goldfinger decides to hire Bond even though he's clearly a spy, or everything relating to Pussy Galore, or the fact that it is very much written in '58 and that the author hates Lesbians and Koreans with a passion.

The prose gets really into random details, and I think it's my favorite part of the book. For example, about a quarter of the story is spent on a game of golf between Bond and Goldfinger. It should have been the driest thing in the world to read, yet it somehow was quite possibly one of my favorite parts. The golf is just a pretense for the mind games the two play while they try to out-cheat each other. I think that's where the book works best, when it gets up close and gives all the details. Some details are useless, like the cut of so-and-so's cuffs, but a lot of the character acting was fun. Bond speeding down the freeway getting mad at the people under the speed limit was a particularly fun scene. There are a lot of little scenes I enjoyed, and a bunch that left me underwhelmed.

All in all, an interesting read, but I wouldn't really recommend it to others.

7th in the 007 canon, it finds Bond meeting an acquaintance in an airport. Mr DuPont says he's lost several thousand to a Mr Goldfinger in cards, and would Bond like to sit in and tell him how he's doing it?

Thus begins the adventure from London to Ft. Knox, involving 6 different crime syndicates in the plan to steal billions in gold.

Almost 60 years after it was written, it's interesting to see the society structure and politically incorrect status of Mr Fleming's world.

Auric Goldfinger....Pussy Galore...James Bond.....my mind whirls. Some what outdated depiction of lesbianism and James ever a misogynist...still my heart raced.

Хорошая, крепко сбитая шпионско-приключенческая история! Единственное, что не понравилось-это отношение Бонда (читай Ian Fleming-а) к корейцам. Интересно, был ли он (Ian Fleming) знаком хотя бы с одним корейцем, что сделал такие"точные" и бескомпромиссные выводы??!!!

Secret agent James Bond is sent to investigate the activities of millionaire Auric Goldfinger & soon comes across a crime far bigger in scale than he could have ever imagined.
Ian Fleming effortlessly pulls the reader into Bond's world. Whether Bond is eating crab in Miami, discussing gold at the Bank of England or playing golf for a huge stake his world becomes brilliantly engrossing.
Fleming makes Goldfinger's insane plan to rob Fort Knox come across as almsot plausible. However, I always find Goldfinger's decision not to kill Bond as wildly unbelievable. That aside, 007's seventh adventure is another great story that never fails to entertain.

"There was no doubt about it, Goldfinger was an artist - a scientist in crime as great in his field as Cellini or Einstein in theirs." - "Goldfinger" by Ian Fleming

As films, "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love" were very similar to Fleming's original work. Not only did "Goldfinger" make some departures into the elements we know and love today (the byplay with Q, the Aston Martin DB5, and the golden-painted Jill Masterson), but it made several interesting departures from Fleming's work so it presumably adapted better for a fantastical film.

The novel is tremendous. It breathes more life into the pre-story - how 007 wound up in Miami meeting Goldfinger himself. The Canasta partner for Goldfinger takes roots in "Casino Royale" - tying us back to the beginning. There is a moment Bond thinks he's dead, where he thinks back to all the women he's loved before.

The core elements - golf with a cheating Goldfinger (albeit with a much more elaborate and colorful description), Jill Masterton (spelling is different here) and her sister Tilly, the infamous Pussy Galore (with much more backstory), the recruited gang bosses (including the new head of the "Diamonds are Forever" gang), the introduction of the Aston Martin DB3 to fit with 007's cover, the Operation Grand Slam plot involving Fort Knox, and a handful of others, are all here, but just different enough to tell a whole different tale.

The book is flawless - it has cards (the pre-requisite to good Bond story), fast cars, cross-country travel, golf, liquor and ladies.

"Goldfinger" is the greatest James Bond film. It is certainly in the upper echelon of the James Bond novels. Fantastic, brilliant villain and a creative, epic story. 5 stars.

I feel too harsh giving it a 3, and too generous giving it a 4 :P Another entertaining entry in Fleming's series, there's lots of action and intrigue and this is so readable, but this is the most wild plot so far and the ending feels very rushed. I liked the introspection of the opening as Bond reflects on the harshness of his job in killing people, but that theme is dropped and doesn't reappear for the whole book. The treatment of non-Western and female characters is also uncomfortable: Bond describes Oddjob's race as "rather lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy"; Tilly's inclusion amounts to little more than a device for Bond to get captured and trigger the showdown; and yeah... Pus*y Galore's in this one..... She decides to suddenly help Bond without explanation, and there is the odd sexual politics of the final 2 pages as she trauma dumps then spontaneously changes sexual orientation to fall for Bond because she's "never met a man before"

O.o

Entertaining if you can look past that stuff, but it's most prominently on display in this entry

Bond. James Bond. Say no more.

Back in the mid sixties I went to see "Goldfinger" and was so taken with the Fleming/Bond thing that I went out and read every single book then available. This one was a bit different as I recall. The lesbian thing was more up front for one thing(than in the movie)and that gave it a different flavor. As I recall Fleming wasn't all that enthralled with Sean Connery's "interpretation" of Bond. Too crude. Not enough of an English gentleman/spy assassin. Date read is a guess.