Thanks, Joel. I have the Shakespeare bio on an end table right now. I've read quite a lot of it, jumping around to make sure I caught the assessments of the books, but am unlikely to get through all 800+.

My impression is that Shakespeare wanted to write the definitive biography and not leave out anything that might matter in Fleming's life, however tangentially That's a valid approach.

But The Complete Man has more than I need to know about, say, Fleming's tortured relationships with his wife and certain other women. So I'm unlikely to finish it. Shakespeare is a good writer, though, and the book never turns into a slog, so you might stick with it.