James Bond usually wears a dark-blue serge suit with a white shirt made of silk. Bond's suits are almost always single-breasted and very lightweight. For casual wear, Bond sports a sleeveless dark blue Sea Island cotton shirt and navy blue tropical worsted trousers. Bond likes comfortable soft leather or moccasin shoes, usually in black (he abhors shoelaces). At times Bond wears a black, knitted silk tie.
Bond also likes pajamas. In CASINO ROYALE, he wears a pajama coat from Hong Kong. (Bond is teased a bit by his American colleagues during the LIVE AND LET DIE case—"We mostly sleep in the raw in America, Mr. Bond.")
Bond takes cold showers. Sometimes he takes a cold shower immediately following a very hot one. The stinging temperature of a cold shower stimulates the nerves in his body. He uses Pinaud Elixir, "that prince among shampoos," and prefers Guerlain's "Fleurs des Alpes" over Camay. Bond usually begins his day with twenty slow pushups, "lingering over each one so that his muscles have no rest." Then, he rolls over and performs leg lifts until "his stomach muscles scream." Next, he touches his toes twenty times and moves on to arm and chest exercises combined with deep breathing "until he is dizzy."
James Bond's cultural interests are not very extensive. His reading habits only serve either functional or recreational purposes. His bookshelf at home includes Tommy Armour on How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time and Ben Hogan's Modem Fundamentals of Golf. Scarne on Cards is a particular favorite and reference guide for cheating and gambling, and Patrick Leigh-Fermor's The Traveller's Tree provides handy information on Haitian voodoo cults. He is especially fond of Eric Ambler thrillers, and is reading The Mask of Dimitrios en route to Istanbul in FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE. Bond claims that he only reads The Times, but has been caught on occasions with The Daily Express, Country Life, and the Evening Standard. The Daily Gleaner amuses him when he's in Jamaica. And from what the reader can gather, Bond has little or no taste in art, music, or theater.
Bond is an outstanding athlete. An expert swimmer both below the surface and above, Bond excels in every sort of water sport. He is able to swim a couple of miles without tiring. He is an avid skier, and has won something called a "Golden K." He actually learned the sport at the Hannes Schneider School at St. Anton in the Arlberg. Bond seems to have a thorough knowledge of every kind of game imaginable; but his favorite, other than card games, is golf. His favorite course is the Royal St Mark's at Sandwich. Bond also enjoys mountain climbing, a fondness he acquired as a youth in Kitzbuhel.
James Bond has no real hobbies, but he does love fast cars. The early novels feature Bond driving one of the last of the 4 1/2-litre Bentleys with a supercharger by Amherst Villiers. Bond kept it serviced every year, allowing a former Bentley mechanic in London to tend it with "jealous care." It was a battleship-grey convertible coupe and was capable of reaching ninety miles per hour with thirty in reserve. But the Bentley met its maker when Hugo Drax's henchman, Krebs, caused it to collide with a heavy roll of newsprint.
The remainder of Fleming's novels featured Bond in a Mark II Continental Bentley which he acquired after its previous owner crashed into a telephone pole. Bond bought the car and had the bend in the chassis straightened and fitted with new power: a Mark IV engine with 9.5 compression. Fleming spends an entire page of Chapter 7 in THUNDERBALL describing the outstanding features of the car and adding that "she went like a bird and a bomb and Bond loved her more than all the women at present in his life, rolled, if that were feasible, together." Bond demands that his car start immediately (in all types of weather), and, after that, by all means stay on the road.
During the Goldfinger affair, Bond is issued a company car in the form of an Aston Martin D.B. III fitted with some unusual specifications. Although not the armory appearing in the film version, the D.B. III includes switches to alter the type and color of Bond's front and rear lights if he was tailing or being followed at night; reinforced steel bumpers; a trick compartment in which to keep a long-barrelled Colt .45; and a radio pick-up tuned to receive an apparatus called the Homer. One must assume Bond was forced to return the Aston Martin to the company car pool after the case, since he never uses it again in subsequent adventures. He resumes life with his beloved Bentley, and is surprised when it reaches a speed of 125 m.p.h. for the first time (while chasing his future wife on the road to Royaleles-Eaux). He worries about the crankshaft bearings for a moment, but later Bond hears "no expensive noises."