Latest IFP Editions Arrive

James Bond is alive and well at Ian Fleming Publications (IFP).   On October 5, 2023 IFP published and re-released three Bond novels.  They were Raymond Benson's "Zero Minus Ten" first published in 1977, Kingsley Amis' "Colonel Sun" first published in 1968, and John Pearson's "James Bond: The Authorized Biography Of 007" first published in 1973.  

I think all the books look great.  They have uniform cover designs, the quality of the books is first class and most importantly it's great to have these three titles in print again.  I'm hopeful IFP will release more titles in the same series.

As an added bonus this copy of "Zero Minus Ten" was signed by the author too with a limit of 250 copies.

On a personal note I have to thank Tim from the great Pan collectors website Tikit.net who sent me these books from the UK.  Thanks mate.  Much appreciated.

"James Bond Is Missing"

"James Bond is missing" it exclaims from the cover of this trade paperback size copy of Kim Sherwood's "Double Or Nothing" published by Harper Collins in the UK.  The reason the novel's title is absent from the cover is due to this being an uncorrected proof released in September 2022.  I was fortunate to purchase this copy over a month ago and it arrived in the mail last week.

The publisher details/copyright page contains the ISBN's for both the future hard back and trade paperback versions.  The final cover for the trade paperback edition looked like this which is certainly similar:

I don't own many uncorrected proofs or advanced reading copies, but here they all are.

Sun Theatre Bondathon Film Festival

Last night I attended the 1983 James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville with another Aussie Bond fan.  The cinema is currently screening all the James Bond films as part of a 'Bondathon' from November 30 to December 3. 

Yesterday afternoon they also screened the Climax TV episode of "Casino Royale" from 1954 starring Barry Nelson and the comedy spoof film of the same name from 1967.  My friend attended these screenings and commented to me they were much better than he remembered.  For me though, I was only interested in "NSNA".  I wanted to see it at a cinema again for the first time in 40 years.

And what did we both think of "NSNA" ?  Obviously some scenes involving computers are a bit dated, and the soundtrack in places isn't great, but overall we felt the film still holds up very well.  And Sean Connery in his last performance as Bond redeems himself from his "Diamond's Are Forever" sleep walk.

If last night was any indication I definitely recommend attending other films in the festival.  Plus there's this great passport the cinema is giving away to people which they'll stamp for each film attended from the Bond programme.

Just one thing though, be sure you know the way back from Yarraville to Melbourne with all the roadworks and detours currently occurring, otherwise you could end up visiting Coode Island on your journey home like I did !

The Hunt For James Bond Continues...

This afternoon my wife and I were in the City to experience the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform the soundtrack to "The Empire Strikes Back" while simultaneously screening the film.  It was fantastic !

Afterwards we visited Dymocks on Collins Street where I discovered the new paperback print of Kim Sherwood's "Double Or Nothing".  Unfortunately one cover corner of the book was slightly scuffed, and they only had one copy in store, but at least I know this printing is now available on Australian book shelves.  The hunt continues...

Here's some photos from my visit, including the new Ian Fleming biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, and some other James Bond related titles:

A Tale Of Two Cities - Sydney

Part 1) Sydney

My wife and I have just returned from Sydney after participating in the Sydney Marathon.  The weather was very warm and the City looked great as usual.

During our trips interstate/overseas we always set aside time to visit a few book stores.  My wife actually does all the hard work, she creates the list of stores to visit.  And when we finally had a spare morning to investigate the addresses on the list we realised the closest secondhand book store from our hotel in Circular Quay was at least 20 minutes away by public transport.  We couldn't find a single secondhand book store in the Sydney CBD.

With limited time we decided to only visit two book stores, both of which sell new books.  

The first was Kinokuniya Sydney.  The last time we visited one of these chain of stores was in Singapore a few years ago.  This store in Sydney was just as large, and it was great to find copies of the 70 Years Of 007 series on the shelves published earlier this year by Ian Fleming Publications.

The second store we visited was Dymocks.  The chain of Dymocks bookstores is probably the largest bricks and mortar seller of new books in Australia.  My wife and I spent almost an hour in this fine store.  The only Bond novel I could find was Anthony Horowitz's "With A Mind To Kill" which was released in a new paperback size a couple of months ago.

And finally, here's some more random photos from out trip:

U.S. Copy Of "With A Mind To Kill" Arrives

Just over a week ago I ordered a paperback copy of Anthony Horowitz's "With A Mind To Kill" published by Harper in the United States and today it arrived in the post.

The cover is almost identical to the UK edition published by Vintage but slightly smaller in size. 

70th Anniversary James Bond Series Arrives

Back in April of 1953 Ian Fleming's first James Bond adventure, "Casino Royale", was published. In April of this year, to celebrate the novel's 70th anniversary, Ian Fleming Publications released a completely new series of paperbacks with cover designs by Webb & Webb.  As a complete set is yet to surface for sale on book shelves here in Australia I ordered the complete set online.  They arrived in the post several weeks ago.

As you can see from the photos above the cover designs are fantastic (even the back covers !) and sitting on a shelf together the spines look fantastic.  Here they are on PizGloria.com.

There has been some controversy about the release of these editions as some text has been changed to bring the novels in line with current community attitudes.  I'm not going to discuss that topic here, instead I'll leave you with your own viewpoint.

Further, "Thrilling Cities" and "The Diamond Smugglers", two non-Bond novels also written by Ian Fleming, were released at the same time with similar cover designs.  I'll add another post featuring these covers later.

Latest Bond Paperbacks In Oz

Earlier this year, in April, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of "Casino Royale", Ian Fleming Publications released a new series of paperbacks.  This series includes the 12 James Bond adventures, 2 short story anthologies and 2 non-Bond novels: "Thrilling Cities" and "The Diamond Smugglers".

As I'm in Australia these books have taken a long time to hit bookshelves here.  In fact I was concerned they'd never arrive.  However when I visited the Dymocks City store on Friday I was pleasantly surprised to find two copies available: "Casino Royale" and "Moonraker".  There was also the mass market paperback size version of Anthony Horowitz's "With A Mind To Kill" which I have never physically seen before either.

I purchased the Horowitz Bond novel which I'll add to PizGloria.com when possible.  As for the Fleming titles I hope to organise a set of these new paperbacks soon.