Trip To The US - Las Vegas

As mentioned in my last post my wife and I are currently in the US to attend a friend's wedding in Las Vegas.  The wedding occurred two days ago and went very well, and now my wife and I are sitting in an airport terminal using the free WiFi about to leave for New York.

While here in Vegas we did manage to find a book store on The Strip.  And WOW did they have some nice Ian Fleming books.  The book store was Bauman Rare Books which I'd say caters for book collectors (or perhaps lucky gamblers) after some rarer items.  The woman at the counter was very friendly and the store is amazing.  It almost resembles a museum.  My wife and I found six Bond Jonathan Cape first editions on display in a cabinet and a seventh on a shelf among other rare books.  Here's some photos:

Unfortunately I lost all my chips at the roulette wheel and couldn't afford to buy any of the excellent books above.  Next time maybe...

Here's a couple more snaps around Vegas, Nevada and Arizona:

The Strip

The Grand Canyon

The Hoover Dam

Trip To The US - San Francisco

My wife and I are in the US for a friend's wedding in Vegas. We're currently in San Francisco enjoying the sights. So far in two and a half days we've travelled on the cable cars, visited Alcatraz, done the day and night Hop-On and Hop-Off tours crossing both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, and walked to the curvy part of Lombard Street. This is my third visit to the "City by the bay" and it's just as enjoyable as when I first visited a few years ago.

As usual we also managed to find couple of book stores. The first was the Russian Hill Bookstore located at 2162 Polk Street, Russian Hill. This store is well organized, with a large number of second hand titles on the shelves. The helpful guy behind the counter directed me to five Ian Fleming Bond paperbacks; disappointingly all of which I already had.

The second store we visited was Green Apple Books located at 506 Clement Street.  This store is so big it has two shop fronts and sells both new and second hand titles. One store largely sells non-fiction titles while the second (just a few doors down) sells fiction, movies and music. Here I found many Bond paperbacks but like the Russian Hill Bookshop I had them all too. I was optimistic of finding some old 1950's Bond titles published by Popular Library or Perma Books but alas it was not to be.

This book above has James Bond links.

The last book shop we visited was Compass Books at the SFO Airport. This store only stocks new titles. I know the latest Bond novel "Forever And A Day" by Anthony Horowitz isn't published in the US until November but I still checked the shelves anyway.

Finally, here's some snaps from our trip so far:

First time I'd physically seen this James Bond Aston Martin Lego set

Golden Gate Bridge

Distant shot of San Fran and the Bay Bridge and the bay

Better view from the ferry

Alcatraz

The curvy Lombard Street

Parking on Fulton Street