The only way to get closer to James Bond's world, I thought, would be to drink it in, which is what I did at a hotel bar a couple of blocks away that legend purports to be the home the famously "shaken, not stirred" Vesper martini.

BBC: James Bond��s London

The lush and easy ways of Memphis play a part in the drama, with visits to Graceland, a church famed for its gospel choir, and a blues bar framing the new relationships in an alluring but unsustainable cocoon of cultural legend.

NEWYORKER: Open Five