Justin’s Newsletter: November 2025
Vol. 5, Issue 11
If you’re not already subscribed to my free monthly email newsletter, you can sign up here. Or if you know someone who might enjoy this, feel free to share it with them.
What’s Up With Me
If you missed Sidney Kirkpatrick’s memorial service, you can watch the full video here.
My Paradise Springs book has been translated into French! My first foreign language translation of one of my books. Read more about the book here.
Watch the latest episode of my award-winning TV show “Well Read with Justin Chapman.” This episode features Raymond Benson, author of the new Felix Leiter novel The Hook and the Eye. Felix Leiter is of course the CIA-turned-Pinkerton-detective friend of James Bond in the Ian Fleming novels. Benson also wrote six Bond continuation novels, three Bond movie adaptation novels, several Bond short stories, and The James Bond Bedside Companion. Watch the full episode here.
Watch the latest episode of my other award-winning TV show “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman.” This episode features a review of the month’s top stories, a history segment, and an interview with Susana Porras, author, community organizer, and Pasadena Police Department’s Senior Communications Coordinator. Read more here.
Around Town
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for interesting books I’ve read recently:
A Different Kind of Tension—Jonathan Lethem
One of my favorite writers (and a friend!) has released a collection of short stories from throughout his long career. Many have science fiction elements, a genre in which Lethem is a master. He has a surrealistic perspective on the world that is truly unique. I interviewed him on my show “Well Read” a few years ago, you can watch it here.
Bond Behind the Iron Curtain—James Fleming
Speaking of James Bond, there’s a rare but fascinating book by Bond creator Ian Fleming’s nephew, James Fleming, that explores the Soviet Union’s relationship with Bond. For the back cover of Fleming’s book On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he was going to use an excerpt from a review by Soviet mouthpiece Izvestiya that excoriated Bond as “rubbish” and Fleming as “mediocre.” But his publisher, Jonathan Cape, got cold feet and ditched the Soviet review in the final printed copies, but not before a small number of galleys were printed with the mocking review included. There’s a question as to whether the review was even real, or a creation of Fleming himself. There are a number of other lesser known but just as fascinating tales of the antagonistic, real-world relationship between Bond and the communists.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
With my Paradise Springs book now translated into French, revisit the two stories that started it all, in Pasadena Now and LAist.
And read all of my journalism here.