New Macmillan Readers ESL Book Coming Soon

I hope I'm not standing on John Cox's toes here - his website The Book Bond is always first to break details about new James Bond covers.  However here's the first image I've seen of "The Man With The Golden Gun" from the new Macmillan Readers titles for 2013.  Note: Macmillan Readers are a series of ESL (English Second Language) books.

I don't believe the book has been released yet, but when it is I'll be adding it to my collection of Macmillan Readers series.

550th Bond Book Arrives

Today I received the 550th English language James Bond novel for the Piz Gloria website.  I purchased it from a business named 1st Choice Used Books.  I don't normally promote on-line book stores however this one offers really cheap books and postage, and from a pamphlet also included in the envelope I read that they have a "being green" policy which really impressed me.

Anyway, this copy of Berkley's "For Your Eyes Only" was printed prior to 1985 which means it lacks the "Featuring From A View To A Kill" film tagline at the base of the cover unlike the two other similar Berkley/Charter covers already on the website.

I'll be adding a scan to the website ASAP.

My Wife Goes On The Hunt

On Valentine's Day last week my wife had to fly to Hobart, Tasmania for the day for her work.  While at lunch she walked to the Imperial Secondhand Bookshop, for me, to check if they had any new Bond hardbacks or paperbacks.  How lucky I am to have such a great wife!

 

They had no Bond paperbacks, however they still had plenty of Bond Jonathan Cape hardbacks including these on a shelf near the entrance.  But whereas on our previous visit there were four there are now five with the addition of a "Thunderball".

And here's a closeup of the above photo showing the spines of the hardbacks laying horizontally on the shelf.  It still amazes me that this store has so many Capes and they're just sitting on a shelf for anyone to pick up and touch!  I'm not aware of any other store like this and I think it's great.

James Bond Visits Oz

Photo used without permission from The Age newspaper website. Hope that's Ok guys

Some very exciting news has just been announced here in Oz.  The "Designing 007 - 50 Years of Bond Style" exhibition is coming to Melbourne Museum.  The exhibition will be held from November 1, 2013 to February 23, 2014 and will feature over 400 objects from the films.

I think this will be the first Bond exhibition to visit our shores, and I'm sure it will be awesome !

Here's a couple of articles about this upcoming Australian event:

http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/coming-soon/designing-007-fifty-years-of-bond-style/

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/to-melbourne-with-love-20130213-2ecrl.html

http://www.news.com.au/national/melbourne-museum-to-host-james-bond-design-exhibition/story-fndo4cq1-1226577291360

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/6015-designing-007-fifty-years-of-bond-style-comes-exclusively-to-melbourne-museum.html

ps. I so much wanted to set the heading of this blog entry as "To Melbourne, With Love" but all the newspapers here have already used it themselves.

Congrats Guys

I have to say congratulations to the team behind "Skyfall" for winning the Outstanding British Film award at the British Academy of Film and Television Art awards today (Oz time).  Great stuff guys.  Well deserved.

Now for the Academy Awards in 13 days, and if the rumours are true we could all be in for a great surprise!

(By the way, I think the image in the second link is pretty cool.  I'm not sure who created it but I like it.  Never seen it before until today.)

Omega Lifetime Magazine

Last night I went to Chadstone Shopping Centre to see a film with some friends ("Django Unchained" - really good film if you can get past the racism and violence).  Prior to the film starting my wife and I walked around the centre and visited a few shops.  One of those stores was the Omega Store.

Now I've previously blogged about Omega in the past and their Bond displays but I've never been able to get any advertising material.  How I wish I lived near a waste land-fill site, the amount of Bond posters I could find would be amazing !

Last night was different though because this Omega Store had a complementary magazine on display for visitors, "Omega Lifetime".  So I picked up the last copy.

After the film had a bit of a flick through it.   The magazines's great.  There's over 40 pages dedicated to "Skyfall", Sam Mendes, the watches in "Skyfall" and a photoshoot with Berenice Marlohe.  The quality of the photos is what got me - very nice.  The articles were all written prior to "Skyfall's" release but the one's I've read so far are very interesting.  And I personally didn't know that both Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig both liked "Live And Let Die" as much as they do. 

A great addition to my Bond collection !

Sydney Book Hunt

My previous blog entry covered the touristy stuff my wife and I did while in Sydney last weekend.  But as with all our trips it also gave me a chance to check out some new book stores.

But the Sydney book hunt started a little earlier than expected.  While visiting the newsagent at Melbourne (Tullamarine) Airport on our way to the departure gate my wife noticed three copies of "Carte Blanche" for sale, all signed by the author.  I didn't purchase a copy though as a few years ago when Mr. Deaver visited Melbourne to promote his Bond novel I managed to grab his signature then.  But it was still an unexpected find, and hopefully a sign of good things to come.

 

The next day after we arrived, the Saturday, we spent the majority of the morning walking and checking out the many second hand book stores.  Our two hosts first took my wife and I to Newtown.

 

We parked near these houses.  They reminded me of the terrace houses in England.  From here we walked to King Street where the book hunt began.

 

King Street, Newtown.

First view upon walking into Gould's Book Arcade.

The four Bond novels I could find in this store.  Despite the number of books they are all really well organised and presented.

- Gould's Book Arcade (second hand) - according to the web this is the largest second hand book store in Sydney.  1000's of novels over two storeys. I could only find the four Bond novels shown above.  I spoke to the lady behind the counter and she explained that the store has been open for over 40 years in Sydney, and 22 years in the current location.

- Elizabeth's Bookshop (second hand) - the next store we visited on King Street.  They didn't have any Bond novels however according to the girl behind the counter (after she checked the computer) their City store had a copy of "Casino Royale" by Pan, although we didn't visit the City store.

- Last Books (second hand) - right at the end of King Street, at the opposite end to Gould's, is Last Books.  It's only been open for three months but it is extremely well organised and presented.  They had a couple of recent Fleming Bonds, but unfortunately I already had them.

 

We next drove to Glebe for lunch and more book stores.  Here two book stores operate next door to each other, one second hand and one new books.

- Gleebooks (new) - they had a few new Vintage Bonds.

- Sappho Books, Cafe & Wine Bar (second hand) - the merging of books and a cafe always scares me, however in this case my fears were allayed.  I never even saw the cafe.  The book section is like a traditional store, with a few rooms of books.  I felt lucky in this store but alas no Bonds!

- The Cornstalk Bookshop (second hand) - the last store we visited in Glebe this long and boxy store had a lot of older books, but I couldn't find any Bonds.  It was possible there were some but I don't know where.  Sometimes these are the stores that surprise me with a find.

On the Sunday when we caught the ferry to Manly we also visited a couple of second hand book stores.

- Desire Books (second hand) - on first impression this looked like a new book store, but it wasn't.  They had a couple of Raymond Hawkey Pan Bonds, and the guy behind the counter also had a look in a box of recent aquisitions and found a "Casino Royale" 2008 movie tie-in.  No luck though.

- Andy's Bookshop (second hand) - the second shop we visited in Manly, and the last for our trip to Sydney, was this store.  Really well organised for the space available I managed to find a Gardner Orion paperback (the first time I've seen a used copy of one of these books) and a Faulks "Devil May Care".  No luck here either though.

All up, no new books for my collection, but it was great to visit some new stores, do some walking, chat (slash "talk shit"), spend some time with my wife and catch up with our friends in Sydney.