The Ian Fleming Japan notebook is a small book of questions and observations that Fleming carried around Japan in 1962, travelling with the journalist Richard Hughes. Passages from it were later worked into You Only Live Twice almost word for word.
In the books
Fleming went to Japan in 1962 to research his twelfth Bond novel, You Only Live Twice. Heritage Auctions sold the notebook on 16 July 2022, describing it as full of questions and curiosities about Japanese language and culture. The original is a unique object and is not for sale on this page.
Owning it now
What you can buy is a working equivalent, and it is made to be used. The Ian Fleming Shop’s ‘Double O Notes’ notebook is British-made and hand-bound in textured leather, with 140 pages of unlined off-white 100gsm paper milled by James Cropper in Kendal and chosen to suit fountain pens. Inside the cover is a gun-sight pattern. It is a notebook in the spirit of Fleming’s, not a copy of it. The price was US$41 at the time of writing, October 2026. Browse more in Books & Media, or see how the story reached the screen under films.
Specifications
| Original | Fleming’s 1962 Japan notebook; sold at auction 16 July 2022; unique |
|---|---|
| Linked notebook | The Ian Fleming Shop “Double O Notes”, leather-bound edition |
| Cover | Textured leather hard cover, gun-sight pattern inside |
| Pages | 140, unlined, off-white 100gsm |
| Paper | Milled by James Cropper, Kendal, Cumbria |
| Made | British-made, hand-bound |
| Price | US$41 (October 2026) |
Full details are on the Ian Fleming Shop page.
