Faber & faber Sean connery (Faber & Faber)

Sean Connery's creation of secret agent James Bond invigorated Britain and its cinema, allowing a cash-strapped, morale-sapped country in decline to fancy itself still a player on the world stage. But while Bond would make Connery the first actor to command a million dollar-plus fee, the man himself was forever pouring scorn on the fantasies audiences found it increasingly hard to separate him from. Undaunted, Connery went on to prove himself one of the cinema's most relaxed and assured stars and a guaranteed box-office draw. Moulding and remoulding his image to fit the contours of the age, Connery has gone from Sadeian Sixties sex symbol to the sagacious magus figure to which today's young stars are forever turning. Spirited, argumentative and sardonically celebratory, Christopher Bray's "Sean Connery" is both a biography of a star and an investigation of what can happen to a man when the images he creates take over his life. And it's an analysis of what it means to be star-struck - a critical tribute to a secular icon who has shaped so many dreams.