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.

Goldsboro Books "On His Majesty's Secret Service"

To celebrate the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, 2023 a new James Bond novel was released in the UK.  The novel was titled "On His Majesty's Secret Service" and written by Charlie Higson who has previously written several Young Bond novels.   

I received my hardcover copy from the UK last week; a signed by the author and numbered (335) edition provided by Goldsboro Books.

All the royalties of sales of this book are being donated to the UK National Literacy Trust.

Just one last thing... Goldsboro Books pack their books amazingly well.  Here's a photo of the packaging my book came in which meant there was definitely no chance of the book being damaged during its journey to Australia.  And if anyone needs some bubble wrap I now have a couple of spare rolls... but who's complaining.

Signet "Casino Royale" Arrives

I received a new addition to my James Bond paperback collection today, a copy of "Casino Royale" published by Signet in the US.  

This is the 27th printing of this title from Signet.  This particular cover has a circular sticker on the cover promoting the 1967 comedy/spoof film version starring David Niven as 007.  The sticker reads "Now an exciting new motion picture".

I already have another copy of this Signet title with a similar sticker on the cover, however the sticker on my first copy has more of a cog wheel appearance.  It contains identical text though.  Both copies also have 007 printed in the top left corner.

There are two other versions of this cover in my collection.  The same cover with 007 printed in the top left corner sans sticker and another copy without the 007 and again without a sticker.  

If you're wondering where I purchased this latest copy it was from John F. in New Zealand who is currently selling his entire Bond book collection.  There are plenty of other great items still available too. 

Annual Yarragon Book Fair 2023

Yesterday we visited Yarragon again for the annual book fair.  As usual my wife and her parents were on board, but sadly, and for the first time, my wife's sister was absent.

Being a wet day we avoided the occasional idiot on the road to safely reach the Gippsland town in just over two hours.

The place was packed with people who had also made the same trek.

Once we reached the town hall we paid the gold coin entry fee and splt up to start our own book hunts.  My wife and her parents are avid readers, while I was searching for additions to my James Bond collection and PizGloria.com.  Small paperbacks were $1 each while trade size paperbacks and all hardbacks were $2.

Unusually this was the only Bond novel we found in the entire book fair, a copy of the continuation novel "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks.  I didn't need to purchase it though as I already have several copies with the same cover.

My wife on the other hand purchased ten books for $11 while my parents-in-laws another 10 for around $10.  For a short time I felt disappointment until I visited the local bakery which bakes the best carrot cake on the planet.  I know it's a big call but I've tried many carrot cakes from around the world and none come close to their recipe.

We also had a delicious lunch at the local pub like usual.  I had a great pizza (no photo necessary) however here's a photo of my wife's lamb roast.  She said it tasted fantastic.

Another year, another Yarragon book fair.  Plenty of books purchased although no luck for me.  We will definitely return next year.

James Bond Is Everywhere

Here's a post that's a little different.  My wife and I visited a plant nursery last week, and while we were looking for a particular type of rose we discovered these three other varieties.   The first was named "For Your Eyes Only"... 

... while the second was named after Dame Judi Dench.

... and the third had a Midas touch.

Our purchase ?  Well they didn't have the specific rose we were after so we ended up purchasing this lovely Dahlia...

Annual Mornington Lions Book Fair

A year ago my wife and I attended the annual Lions Book Fair in Mornington.  And we really enjoyed the event; the books were well organised, they were great quality... and reasonably priced.  So a fortnight ago we attended the fair again along with my wife's brother.

I found several James Bond books, a couple of which I recognised from last year.

I also found this omnibus of spy novels including Ian Fleming's "The Man With The Golden Gun".  It included this still from the film featuring Christopher Lee as Scaramanga.

While looking through the "S" boxes I found this book club hardback copy of John Gardner's "Seafire".  Smaller in size than a normal hardback I wasn't even aware this copy existed and couldn't go past if for just $2.  This was my only Bond purchase for the day, however my wife and brother-in-law did find a few books for themselves.

All three of us left with some great purchases and are looking forward to attending again next year.

New "Dr No" ESL Copy

Like all book collectors there are several books in my collection that I hope to eventually upgrade to a better copy.  One of those is an ESL (English second language) copy of "Dr No" published by Hutchinson Bulls-Eye as it has several creases down the centre of the front cover.  So when I saw a cheap copy of the same book for sale online the other day I snapped it up.  Free postage was a bonus, probably because the book is so thin.

My new copy arrived last week.

Here's a photo of both copies, the copy on the left with the obvious cover creases.  I have also updated the cover image on PizGloria.com.  I'm glad to no longer have to search for this cover now.

A Box Of James Bond Box Sets

My previous post mentioned a box that I'd recently received in the mail containing two English second language James Bond books.  Well there were three other items in the same box and these were considerably more exciting.  

All three are Bond box sets.  The first is the rarest, a slipcase containing four titles published by Pan Books in 1973.  The books are part of the Still Life series.  The slipcase reads "Four Famous James Bond Thrillers".  The titles are "Casino Royale", "From Russia With Love", "Dr No" and "Goldfinger".   The slipcase does not have an ISBN.

The second and third box sets were released by Triad.  The set in the left of the photo contains six Triad Panther titles - "Live And Let Die", "From Russia With Love", "Goldfinger", "You Only Live Twice", "The Man With The Golden Gun" and "Octopussy And The Living Daylights".  The set on the right contains four Triad Granada titles - "Live And Let Die", "Goldfinger", "The Man With The Golden Gun" and "Octopussy And The Living Daylights".  Both sets are part of the Girls On Guns series and the slipcases read "Bond 007".  The six book set has an ISBN 0 586 04820 0.  The four book set has an ISBN 0 586 05691 2.

All three box sets are difficult to find.  In fact I've been looking for the Pan Books slipcase for over 20 years, so it's great to finally add them all to my collection.  More details can be found here along with the other box sets I own.

"What's In The Box ?"

The James Bond collector John F., a frequent visitor to PizGloria.com, has decided to sell his extensive collection of quality books.  It feels like every day there's a new batch of books posted on the Facebook group James Bond Collectable Books Worldwide by John to excite us collectors.  I was fortunate to purchase the items in the box that arrived today.

And here's two of the books I snapped up...

These are English Second Language (ESL) abridged novels created for students learning English.  I already have similar copies of both books however these copies have slight variations.

The first book to compare are these covers of Ian Fleming's "Diamonds Are Forever" adapted by Patrick Nobes with a cover illustration by Francis Phillipps.  Both were printed in the UK however the Bulls-Eye logos in the bottom left corner of the covers differ.  

The copy on the left with the yellow, black and red logo was printed in 1989 by Hutchinson and has an ISBN of 0091299411.  The copy on the right with the white logo was printed in 1991 by Thornes and has an ISBN of 0748710183.  These are only minor differences but still interesting as a collector.

The other book is "For Your Eyes Only" which is one of Ian Fleming's short stories collection.  These editions were published by Longman Structural Readers and simplified by Norman Wymer with a cover illustration by John Holder.  Both were printed in Hong Kong.  

The copy on the right was printed in 1975 and has further text in black on the cover compared to the one on the left which was printed in 1977.   Both copies share the same ISBN of 0582537924.  Again not much of a difference between covers but probably more obvious than the "Diamonds Are Forever" above.

As for the remaining items in the box, here's a sneak preview.  These are probably more interesting... and harder to find in the wild.