I read the Bond books several years ago, and yes indeed, they are different from the films. If you get some time, you would probably enjoy reading a biography of Ian Fleming. He was an ... interesting guy, who lived an interesting life. The books represent some of his fantasy life to a degree. You can probably find out enough about him to better "get" where he's coming from in the books just by reading a short biography on the web somewhere.

As for the Saint, it's a tad before my time, although I've always wanted to see a few episodes to get an idea of what it's about. It's what got Roger Moore the James Bond role. I liked Moore's earlier turns as Bond, but he ended up a little over the top with the humor in the end. He still made some of my favorite Bond movies; in particular I really like Man With The Golden Gun, which, however, is generally ridiculed by most Bond aficionados. I'm a big Brosnan fan, both as Bond and in real life (From what I've read he's a genuinely decent human being, which isn't all that common in his income range). Next to Connery, he was my favorite Bond. I also liked Dalton; it's too bad some of the scripts he had to work with were so lousy (which led to the franchise going on hiatus), because he was good in the role IMO. I actually have liked all the actors who played the lead role, including the much maligned George Lazenby. OHMSS is one of the best of the Bonds even though he hadn't grown into the role yet. He was still decent, I thought. Craig is going to be interesting. I haven't closed my mind to him, but I'm really perplexed as to why they would gamble at this point. I suspect his casting has the potential to really bomb, which you would have thought was impossible given that the latest Bond film grossed more than any of them by a wide margin. The folks at EON could look like geniuses or dunces when this is all over; we'll have to see.

Still haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet, which is unfortunate. Other than that, I'm seeing Superman on Saturday or Sunday. Also, read the Johnny Depp piece you linked to, which was good. It is funny how Hollywood and our media work. Tom Cruise has quirky beliefs (or so we are told), and he is portrayed as a crazy man; Johnny Depp has quirky beliefs (or so we are told), and he gets friendly writeups like that one. I stopped believing most of the stuff coming from the media a long time ago, but I still pay attention to disparate treatment of people, like you see in this case. It's amazing to see how similar situations come out in ink -- it would be quite easy to make Depp look like some kind of freak (as happens to Cruise) given his lifestyle choices and political views, but when that side of him is soft peddled, he comes out looking like a cool, nonthreatening rebel.