Pakenham Book Exchange

While driving home from the Yarragon Book Fair last Saturday, my wife and I stopped in Pakenham to visit the Book Exchange.  I'd never visited this store before and after seeing "Closing Down Sale" displayed on the front window I feared this would also be my last visit.

The store was really well organised and many of the older paperbacks were in plastic protective slips.

 There were several Bond books near the back of the store including a couple of John Gardner first editions but I had them all.

So no Bond books from here either, but after speaking to the owner Jim the good news was the Pakenham Book Exchange would probably still be around for a few more years perhaps just a few doors down from the current location.

"The Spectre Trilogy" Slipcase Arrives

Today I received "The Spectre Trilogy" slipcase in the mail containing the three Ian Fleming novels featuring the fictional "criminal organisation" Spectre.  Published by Vintage Books, this James Bond box set was released around the same time as last years Daniel Craig film of the same name.  It is as close to a movie tie-in for the last Bond film as we are ever likely to get.  Fortunately the parcel was well packaged too after its journey from the UK.

Annual Yarragon Book Fair

As we do every year my wife and I travelled to Yarragon in Gippsland this afternoon to hunt for James Bond books.  After driving for just over an hour we reached the town and found our way to the book fair.

The book fair is held by Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteers and always has hundreds of books.  On entry we saw there were just as many customers as usual scouring over the titles on the trestle tables.

My wife and I searched opposite sides of the hall and back room but neither of us were successful.  However we did have a great hot chocolate and chocolate thickshake at a cafe just around the corner so all ended well.  Having written this entry using free wifi we're now about to embark on the journey back to our home in the big smoke.

New Zealand Road Trip Continues

Ok, so time has got the better of me and I've been slack in updating my blog.  But here's a further update on our road trip of New Zealand back in April.

After visiting the Bay Of Islands the next stop on our road trip of New Zealand was Rotorua.  This area has many geothermal attractions including geysers, boiling mud and steaming water.  The geothermal activity also results in a lot of sulphur gas in the air (rotten egg gas), and for this reason it was probably fortunate I found no second hand book stores in the town as I suspect they would have absorbed the smell.  Regardless, if you ever visit NZ you should definitely visit this area.

 

After leaving Rotorua we headed south. We had a snack break in a small town named Sanson that also had a large second-hand book store.  I found no Bonds and the large sign on the front door "Absolutely no photos inside" stopped me from taking any further snaps.

The last city we visited on the North Island was the capital Wellington.  Prior to our arrival here I'd emailed another James Bond book collector, John F who lives in NZ, to learn the location of some second hand book stores to visit.  He summed it up in two words; Cuba Street.

So my wife and I grabbed a map of the city and walked the streets.  The first store we found was Ferret Bookshop at 175 Cuba Street.

 

 

 

The woman behind the counter was very helpful and led me to the two Bond books she currently had on the shelves.  Unfortunately I had them both.

Next we walked to Pegasus Books Shop at 204a Left Bank just a little down he street.  No luck here either but they a huge variety of books, all well organised and in good condition.

We then walked down Cuba Street to Arty Bees Books.

Arty Bees Books is located at the corner of Cuba and Manners Streets.  It was easily the largest second hand book store I visited in the North Island and the way it was laid out and the way the books were organised reminded me of Russells Books in Canada.  It felt like the store sold new books, not second hand ones.

Unfortunately no luck in this store either, but these three book stores on Cuba Street were well worth the visit.

Finally we managed to drop by Whicoulls book store on the way back to our hotel.  This chain of stores selling new books is common throughout NZ.

And here's a couple of other snaps of the sights of Wellington:

"Shoot To Kill" From Singapore

In December 2015 my friend Yan travelled to Singapore.  While there she was kind enough to visit the Kinokuniya Bookstore and take some photos for me.

She noticed they had many copies of the UK version of Steve Cole's Young Bond novel "Shoot To Kill" on the shelves.  At the time that version of the cover was not available in Australia.  Six months later this cover is still not available here and according to staff at the many book stores I've visited there's no release date for it at this time.

So two weeks ago when Yan mentioned she was travelling to Singapore again I asked if she could visit Kinokuniya Bookstore and purchase a copy of "Shoot To Kill" for me.  Today was her first day back at work and sure enough she'd bought a copy, the last on the shelves in Singapore.

And here it is...  Thanks heaps Yan !

Surprise City Book Hunt - Part 2

Following on from yesterday's post, today my wife and I spent our second day in the City and visited a few more book stores.

The first was Dymocks on Collins Street where I was looking for the newly released paperback reprint of "Trigger Mortis" by Anthony Horowitz.  No luck though.  I also searched for a Young Bond reprint by Charlie Higson to complete the set and checked out the Bond books in the movie section.

Second we visited Robinson's Bookshop at the Emporium.  No luck here, although I did almost get hit by a wayward ladder.

We then made our way to Elizabeth Street where we checked out Minotaur.

And finally we visited All Star Comics while making our way back to the hotel to check out. I didn't even know this store existed at this location.  Heaps of mags and a lots of collectables but no Bond stuff for me today.

Finally, while in the City we visited the excellent Scorsese Exhibition at ACMI, Fed Square.  Here's some snaps.  I know it would never happen but he would direct a brilliant Bond film.  Perhaps "007 In New York" !