European Holiday 2025 - Strasbourg, France

Another train journey, this time a short two hour trip from Strasbourg to Paris.  

When my wife first prepared the list of book stores found in Strasbourg she commented I'd be impressed, and I was.  During our time there we visited at least 15 book stores, all located within a 30 minute radius of our hotel.

La Tache Noire was a great find.  The store specialises in new and second-hand thrillers and crime novels.

The store had many photos on its walls of authors who had visited and signed books.  On the day we visited the owner was waiting for a local Strasbourg author, Annette Fern, to make an instore appearance and sign her books.

Another bookshop, which was fortunately located opposite our hotel was Kleber.  Most likely named because of the central plaza adjacent to it, this store had thousands of new French language books for sale.

On the opposite side of the central plaza, Place Kleber, was Gallimard.  This store also sold new books and appeared to be linked to the Kleber bookstore specialising in international language books including English.  I found one book here absent from my collection, Ian Fleming's "Live And Let Die" published by William Morrow in the U.S., however the cover was slightly damaged due to the poor quality of the paper stock used by the publisher.  This didn't surprise me though.

We also visited a nice second-hand store which appeared to be operated by an older couple, neither of whom could speak English.  We managed to find only one James Bond novel however they had plenty of good quality used books.

And here's some of photos of other book stores we visited or encountered:

Also, yesterday the Saturday market was held in Place Kleber, and featured numerous second hand book stalls.  Strasbourg is certainly a place to visit if you love beautiful old towns... and books !

Finally, here's some photos of beautiful Strasbourg:

The gothic Strasbourg Notre-Dame Cathedral notable for having only one spire

The canals

The Old Town

 

European Holiday 2025 - Berlin, Germany

I'm currently sitting on a train with my wife on our way to Strasbourg, France.  We're leaving Berlin at 250 km/h after four nights spent at a fancy hotel.  Sadly I've still no James Bond book purchases to attribute to this trip.

I was very optimistic about finding James Bond books in Berlin.  I just needed two more paperbacks published in the 1960's/1970's to complete my Phoenix Shocker series of German language books... but finding them was not to be.

The question why is very clear; there were no secondhand book shops within a one hour radius of our hotel.  Sure there were plenty of book stores close by selling new books; Dussman, Thalia and Relay for a start.  But there were no antique or dusty old secondhand book stores that didn't require a train journey to a different German borough.  Well that's according to our research on Google Maps anyway.

So my Phoenix Shocker series will remain incomplete for now, still requiring a replacement copy of "Colonel Sun" (as my copy has some cover damage) and a copy of "Tod im Rückspiegel" which contains four Ian Fleming short stories taken from "For Your Eyes Only" or "Octopussy".  The image below is courtesy of a nice little website called Hefte.

Here's some photos from the new book stores we visited which included several James Bond titles:

Dussmann had two John Gardner - James Bond titles published by Cross Cult with cover designs by Michael Gillette.  I love this German series but only own one title, Robert Markham's "Colonel Sun".  The Dussmann book store we visited also had an English Bookshop at the rear that featured this copy of Ian Fleming's "Diamonds Are Forever" published by Ian Fleming Publications.

Thalia which we found in the Mall of Berlin.  They operated two stores adjacent to each other; one for German language books and the other for English.  I was unable to find any James Bond titles in either store.  There were some really nice German language books though.

Relay stores are common in many large train stations here in Europe but I found no Bond novels on this visit.

And finally, here's some photos from our travels in Berlin:

The most famous mural on the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall

The Reichstag building with its glass dome

The Brandenburg Gate

The TV Tower, ever visible when walking around Berlin, completed in 1969

Another section of remaining Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie

Some historic buildings, many from Museum Island