New Bond Paperback In My Collection

It's the AFL Grand Final long weekend and normally I'd be in Metung, Gippsland with my wife and sister-in-law on our annual getaway.  However true to 2020, nothing has panned out as expected.  The Grand Final is being played in Queensland, the first time ever this event has taken place outside of Victoria.  It's taking place in October when normally it's September.  And my sister-in-law is recovering from leukemia treatment in hospital.

So my wife and I are watching the game on TV at home and I'm writing this at the same time.  But it's not a "grannie" weekend without a post from me about James Bond.

Last week I received in the mail a copy of "Octopussy And The Living Daylights" published by Oxford Dominoes in 2018.

This edition is aimed at readers for whom English is their second language, and it's a great addition to the collection. I always like the original drawings in these ESL books.  Sometimes the drawings are a little dodgy, but the ones contained in this edition are pretty good.  Here's one of Bond in his Bentley.

Collecting these ESL books may not be for everyone, but I've certainly got a few now.  Here's some more from Oxford.  Fingers crossed Oxford Dominoes release more in this series.

Elusive Pan Cover

It's not a first.  It's not even a second.  But when I saw this "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" published by Pan Books in 1964, with blue/purple text on the cover, I felt compelled to buy it.

I already have a similar cover in my collection but that one proved so difficult to find the first time it's hard to go past the same cover again.

This copy was part of a lot of three Pan James Bond paperbacks, all with the Raymond Hawkey inspired covers, for sale online.  I first noticed them available around July/August.  When I saw the same lot again over the weekend I thought "that"s long enough for someone else to have purchased them" so I negotitated with the seller to just purchase this one title... and voila.

I'm still looking for an elusive 1st edition of this paperback title, but this 3rd is still a great find and a quite scarce cover that one day may help me eventually trade up to a 1st.