Annual Yarragon And Warragul Visit

Last week my wife and I, along with my parents, drove a little over an hour to Yarragon in Gippsland, Victoria for the Yarragon Book Fair.  The annual fair is held in the town hall to raise money for the local fire brigade.

This is our fifth visit to the fair and probably my most successful.  I suppose having four pairs of eyes instead of two helped.

As we entered the hall I noticed how busy it was compared to previous years.  Word is hetting around.  And there seemed to be fewer of the books I'd seen in previous years, however I did notice the box of Dan Brown novels that I saw last year !

I'd like to say I noticed the Bond novels below during our search but in actual fact my wife pointed most of them out to me.

 

I ended up purchasing this copy of John Gardner's "Licence Renewed".  It's a Book Club Edition and I already have a copy, but for $1 how could I go past it !  I also bought this Sean Connery autobiography which my Mum managed to find.  As you can see from the photos above we found no Fleming Bond novels.

After leaving the hall we then had lunch in a cafe near the main road.  I highly recommend the sausage roll and chips.

We then spent over an hour strolling along the strip of small shops in the town and purchased a few items.  In one gift store I noticed these meerkat figurines for sale...

... and then unexpectedly I noticed a James Bond meerkat standing at the back of the cabinet.  It looked great and I considered it for a moment but had to let it go.

We then returned to the car for our return drive to Melbourne.  But our trip was interrupted as usual by a quick stop in Warragul at the Red Door Bookstore.

Unfortunately this store is closing down in August but I got the feeling after chatting to the owner, Wayne, that while he's sad about it all he's happy it's occurring on his terms.  The building he's leasing is being sold.  It's still a shame though as the store is so well organised and Wayne knows a thing or two about books.

I ended up purchasing these two John Gardner first editions and and also an early paperback edition of Ian Fleming's "Moonraker".

Make sure you visit this store before it closes in early August as there's plenty of great novels on the shelves, they're all in good condition, and there's currently a 50% discount on all stock.

My Dad and I spent about half an hour chatting to Wayne in the book store while the girls sat in the car.  We then made our way home talking about how much we'd enjoyed the entire day and how we'd definitely be returning next year.