The Beach (novel) The Beach (novel) The Beach is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers. In 2000, it was adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In a cheap hotel on the Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young American backpacker, meets a mentally disturbed Scotsman going by the
The Spy Who Loved Me (novel) be no reprints or paperback version of the book, and for the British market no paperback version appeared until after Fleming's death. Because of the heightened sexual writing in the novel, it was banned in a number of countries. In the US the story was also published in "Stag" magazine, with the title changed to "Motel Nymph". Broadly, the critics did not welcome Fleming's experiment with the Bond formula; academic Christoph Linder has pointed out that "The Spy Who Loved Me" received the worst reception of all the Bond books. "The Daily Telegraph", for example, wrote "Oh Dear Oh Dear