You Only Live Twice (novel) was released in 1962, and Bond's personality was somewhat skewed towards the screen persona rather than simply to Fleming himself; Sean Connery's filmic depiction of Bond affected the book version, with "You Only Live Twice" giving Bond a sense of humour and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories, although Fleming himself was part Scottish. Correspondence dating back to 1960 shows that Fleming contacted a Scottish nobleman to help develop Bond's family history, in particular seeking a Scottish "Bond" family line. Fleming's first trip to Japan was as part of the "Thrilling Cities" trip undertaken for "The
You Only Live Twice (novel) Muggeridge, writing in "Esquire" magazine disagreed, writing that ""You Only Live Twice" has a decidedly perfunctory air. Bond can only manage to sleep with his Japanese girl with the aid of colour pornography. His drinking sessions seem somehow desperate, and the horrors are too absurd to horrify ... it's all rather a muddle and scarcely in the tradition of Secret Service fiction. Perhaps the earlier novels are better. If so, I shall never know, having no intention of reading them." Maurice Richardson, in "The Observer", thought "You Only Live Twice" "though far from the best Bond, is really almost as