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The countdown to the publishing event of the year- a new James Bond novel to mark Ian Fleming’s centenary by none other than Sebastian Faulks - officially begins today at www.myspace.com/devilmaycarebook.
Devil May Care has come to MySpace, and we’re looking for someone to create the book’s theme tune. Not only will this bring the winner fame, glory and admiration, but their song will be featured on the audio book (published this May), and they’ll also receive £1000 to spend on music equipment.

The question has already been asked - why MySpace? Is Penguin ignoring Bond's original audience, in their attempt to be too down with the kids? I don't believe so. And MySpace isn't just for the kids these days, anyway. We thought long and hard about what we could offer to Bond fans and would-be Bond fans online, given that there is already so much out there. We don’t believe in building websites for the sake of it. Partnering with MySpace gives us a chance to bring Bond – the original Bond as Ian Fleming created him – to a whole new audience. Entrants to the competition must sample a Fleming Bond audio book in their track, any part of five we have provided: not only will this test their creativity, but entrants will be forced to think about who the Bond of the books is. It is this Bond who appears in Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care and, with no other detail on the content of the book available to them, they are wise to consider the Fleming backlist carefully.

And you can't really argue with MySpace’s statistics of over 10 million users in the UK. This hotbed of creativity provides an army of talented people who, lucky for us, are all in one place. These are the people who will bring the literary Bond into the twenty-first century – as far as I know, there has never been a theme tune for a book before. This is a chance for someone to make their own stamp on one of our most exciting books in a long time.

As for the hardcore Bond fans, I suspect they’ll join us anywhere to get their fix: extra content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, hints of what’s to come… and there’ll be lots of all of that as the countdown continues...

Jen Doyle

Wannabe Bond girl

Suddenly, another year has gone by. A final Harry Potter, the promise of more Bond, and a growing addiction to stollen - that's been my 2007 in a nutshell. The future, however, looks both golden and delicious: Bond is actually published, the shops stop selling stollen (for a while), and we give you a new Marian Keyes, the plague, a bit of musical poetry, some fairly monstrous and some very funny parenting, a gangland statistician, some number-crunching Lewis Caroll stuff, and a guide for nice guys. What more could you ask from 2008?

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a lovely New Year - I'm off to dance on the photocopier at the annual Penguin Towers bash.

Sam the Copywriter

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Today is a momentous day for us here at Penguin Towers - today we announce to the world that BOND IS BACK.

It's been a closely guarded secret here for a little while, but thankfully the time has come that we can reveal to all that in May 2008, Penguin UK will be publishing the next literary instalment in the glorious tradition of Ian Fleming's most famous double 0 agent.

And so, we bring you DEVIL MAY CARE - the new James Bond novel. Most excitingly of all - I can tell you now that the author of this next instalment is one of the true greats of British writing ... Sebastian Faulks...

Famed for his "French Trilogy" (The Girl at the Lion D'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray), and more recently for Human Traces and Engleby - Sebastian has for the last twenty years reached out to readers with his masterful prose, his meticulous eye for detail and setting, and his exceptional ability to make his characters transcend the limits of the page. And now he is applying his style and skill to writing the next chapter in the life of our favourite spy - Bond, James Bond.

Picking up exactly where Fleming left off, DEVIL MAY CARE is set during the height of the Cold War, the action played out in exotic locations across the world - and it seems Sebastian very much enjoyed getting into the swing of things:

“In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling.”

I can't reveal too much about the book at this stage - you'll have to wait until next May I'm afraid - but believe me - it really will be worth it. DEVIL MAY CARE has everything one could possibly ask from a James Bond novel, everything one could possibly ask from Sebastian Faulks' writing, and most of all, it's a bloody good thriller. I promise you all - you're in for a real treat.

For more information - please visit www.Penguin007.com

Alex Clarke - Senior Editor

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