City Book Hunt + North By Northwest

I apologise for my tardiness in writing blog entries this year.  It's been a busy year so far and I probably haven't spent enough time on this blog or PizGloria.com.

I did however visit the City a couple of weeks ago with my wife. 

We visited a few stores (including the book stores shown below), had a fantastic Japanese dinner at Fed Square and then attended a stage play version of "North By Northwest".  And I have to say the stage play was brilliant.  I wondered how they were going to do the Mt. Rushmore scenes, the train, the crop duster biplane and the corn fields... and yet they pulled it off remarkably well.  If you ever get a chance you have to see this stage show !

Alright, getting back to the book hunt.  As usual we visited City Basement Books.  Not as many Bond books as usual which is actually a good sign as it means they're making sales.  Looking forward to visiting this store again soon.

We then visited Dymocks.  I was after copies of the Charlie Higson "Young Bonds" with the new Young Bond logo but I already had the copies on the shelf.

Next up we visited Fed Square where the Saturday Book Market was being held.  We both had a look but neither of us found a single Bond novel which was unusual.  Previously there were always plenty of ex-library hard backs for sale.

Finally we visited Hill Of Content and then The Paperback Store but alas there were no Bond books on my wanted list.  So instead we returned to the Arts Centre where we settled down to watch the aforementioned stage play.

First Book Hunt Of The Year

I haven't visited many second hand book stores this year.  So last Sunday my wife and I thought we'd make a visit to one of my regular haunts; Abra Card Abra - Roycroft Antiquarian Booksellers in Kew.  To avoid making the same mistake as us though you should know that Roycroft have changed their opening hours; they're no longer open on Sundays.  We found out the hard way !

We then made our way to Glenferrie Road in Hawthorn where we visited Readings book store.  This store sells new books and I hoped they may have a copy of Charlie Higson's '"Hurricane Gold" with the new Young Bond logo.

They did, however the cover didn't meet to my very fussy requirements.  Looks like my search continues...

 

They did have a number of other Bond related books including these two below.

And while in Hawthorn it's hard to resist Haigh's chocolates just a few doors down.  We bought a bag of freckled chocolate buttons and they tasted great.

Another Young Bond Purchased

Last Thursday night I visited Thesaurus Bookstore in Brighton as it's open till 6pm on weekdays.

A quick check of the Young Adult readers section revealed a copy of Charlie Higson's "By Royal Command" featuring the new "Young Bond" logo.  These books are hard to find in good condition because the covers are easily scratched so I snapped this one up fast.

I now have four books in this Young Bond series featuring the new logo, with just one to go.

Waterstones Trigger Mortis Edition Arrives

I received another copy of Anthony Horowitz's "Trigger Mortis" in the mail last week.

This first edition hardback was excusively released by the UK book store chain Waterstones and has two features which distinguishes it from the standard first edition of the same book: 1) The dust jacket is black instead of silver, and 2) there are extra pages at the back to include a reproduced draft TV treatment by Ian Fleming titled "Murder On Wheels".  Some of this original material by Fleming was woven into the "Trigger Mortis" story by Horowitz.

This is now the third hardback copy of this book in my collection.  The other two are the Goldsboro Edition (which I have written about previously) and the standard hardback.  All of these are UK printings.  I did happen to see several US versions available for sale at Singapore Airport recently but all the dust jackets were damaged around the spine so I decided not to buy one.

Finally, here's the three hard backs together.

Piz Gloria Website Launched Four Years Ago Today

Four years ago today PizGloria.com was launched on the web, and amazingly during those four years the site has had over 12,000 visitors !  In fact in 2015 alone there were almost 4,000 visitors which is 1,000 more than any previous year.  I hope changes made to the site over the last 12 months, including the addition of the Next and Previous buttons to each page, have made the site easier to use and more enjoyable.

As usual here is a brief analysis of the stats below:
- The average number of pages viewed per visit increased to 7 in 2015 from 3 in 2014
- The overall number of pageviews for 2015 was almost the total of the previous 3 years combined (just 12,000 less)
- The average time spent on the site during a visit in 2015 was 3:30 minutes which was 1 minute more on average than 2014.  Only 2012 had a better average with 4:40 minutes per visit/session

Year 1 - Jan 24, 2012 to Jan 23, 2013

 

Year 2 - Jan 24, 2013 to Jan 23, 2014

Year 3 - Jan 24, 2014 to Jan 23, 2015

Year 4 - Jan 24, 2015 to Jan 23, 2016

 

Finally, thanks for visiting both the Collecting Piz Gloria blog and the PizGloria.com website. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

600 James Bond Paperbacks Reached !

After purchasing a copy of Kingsley Amis' "Colonel Sun" on Saturday, newly reprinted in the UK by Vintage, this book brought the total number of Bond novels in my collection to 600!  An amazing figure if I say so myself and a great continuation novel too.

Singapore Book Store

In May of this year my wife and I spent two nights in Singapore. While we did a lot of sight seeing somehow we missed out on visiting what is said to be the best book store in that country, Kinokuniya Books.

So when my friend Yan said she was going to Singapore for a few days this week, I asked if she could grab a few photos of the store for me.  And here they are:

She even managed to find the new paperback version of Steve Cole's Young Bond novel "Shoot To Kill" which hasn't been released in Australia yet.  

Thanks heaps for the photos Yan.  Very much appreciated.

Two More Bond Books Acquired

I've just managed to purchase two more Bond books.  The first is a US proof copy published by Harper Collins of "Trigger Mortis" by Anthony Horowitz.  I've been trying to find a copy of this book for several months now.

I had the second book on order at Thesaurus Books for a couple of months and fortunately it's arrived.  This omnibus published by Vintage contains the same three titles as "The Blofeld Trilogy" published by Penguin in 2010 ("Thunderball", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "You Only Live Twice"), but the title change suggests this book will be the closest thing we'll get to a movie tie-in for the latest Daniel Craig - James Bond film "Spectre".  It even has an introduction by Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. 

The cover image is also reminiscent of the Vintage 007 Series.  So far I've been unable to identify the cover artist though.

And finally, for those readers interested enough to read the whole of this blog entry, these two additions bring to total number of covers displayed on PizGloria.com to 599 !

Further Additions To My Bond Book Collection

Last week I received two Bond books in the mail.  Both were "Dr No" movie tie-ins published by Pan books in 1962.  However unlike the existing copy of the same UK movie tie-in already in my collection, these two both display "Great Pan" on the cover instead of "Pan".  There are other differences and further details can be found on the Slight Cover Variations page of PizGloria.com under 11.  Here's a photo of the books (with many thanks to Alan T).

I also visited a couple of book stores selling new books.  The first was Thesaurus Books in Brighton where I purchased two books: "The Man With The Golden Typewriter" which is a collection of letters written by Ian Fleming and edited by Fergus Fleming, and a copy of "Goldfinger" published by Vintage to accompany the release of "Trigger Mortis" by Anthony Horowitz.

And finally, I also visited a Dymocks store where I saw a copy of the new Ian Fleming omnibus "The Spectre Trilogy" for sale.  I would have purchased it but I already have a copy on order.

Spectre Billboards

I've seen a few billboards promoting "Spectre" around Melbourne but haven't been able to snap any photos until now.  Here's one my wife took this morning of a billboard just near the Tullamarine Freeway.  Sorry it's a little out of focus but we were travelling at around 100km/h.

I've also seen some advertising on the side of buses so I'll try and grab a photo of one of those too next time I see one.

Quick Book Hunt + Omega Lifetime Magazine

I visited a couple of second hand book stores today that I regularly haunt.  Both are in Caulfield South and are almost opposite each other.  

The first was "Out Of Print Books etc".  As usual Ken greeted me as I entered his store and the Bond books were sitting together on one of the shelves.  There were several new Bond paperbacks in stock compared to my last visit and the Triad-Granada copy of "Dr No" shown below was in such a nice unread condition I couldn't resist purchasing it.

The second store was "Syber's Books".  Ever since I started visiting this store I've never found a James Bond paperback on the shelf and I suspect they're all held at "Penny Syber's" book store on Chapel Street.  However today after navigating to the back of the store, through the maze of shelves and boxes of books, I managed to find one Sebastian Faulks and six John Gardner Bond hardbacks as shown below, all reasonably priced too.

Finally, while in Singapore last week I managed to acquire two copies of the latest Omega Lifetime magazine; the "Spectre Edition".  I have since given away one copy to a fellow Melbourne blogger Teeritz who writes The Teeritz Agenda which often features blog entries about Omega watches and James Bond.  His blog is always a great read and thus I thought he might like a copy of this magazine.

Here's some photos from the Omega Lifetime magazine:

 

 

 

And in return Teeritz was kind enough to give me an Omega booklet which was available during the release of "Casino Royale".