Mornington Lions Club Book Fair

Every year my wife and I attend the annual Lions Club of Mornington Book Fair.  It's held in a big room full of thousands of books on trestle tables.  My wife loves attending because it's really well organised with great quality books alphabetised by author.

Entry is by gold coin donation (either $1 or $2) and the books are $3 each.  I'm not sure if it's because of the current "cost-of-living crises" however there were definitely more book hunters today than previous years.

While I've been fortunate to pick up a couple of Bond paperbacks in the past, even if they were doubles, I had no such luck today with only these two titles found which I left for someone else to purchase.

We did manage to purchase four non-Bond books for my father-in-law though and my wife picked up three books for herself.  So it was a successful book hunt for some... and I'll be holding out to visit again next year and hopefully have more luck myself.

The book fair continues tomorrow till 4pm.

Ps. I did score a snag in bread from the Lions Club sausage sizzle just as we were leaving.  Yum !

"By Royal Command" Puffin Books Postcard

Back in 2008 Puffin Books released a series of free postcards promoting many of their recent releases aimed at children and yound adults.  One of those postcards was for Charlie Higson's Young Bond novel "By Royal Command".  It featured a photo of the cover from the hardback edition, as can be seen on the example below that I recently acquired.

I'm not sure which book stores had these postcards available at the time.  Perhaps one of my readers might know?  Regardless I never saw them here in Australia.

Coincidentally, Charlie Higson's name has again hit the James Bond socials recently.  Just a few days ago, on April 1, Ian Fleming Publications announced that the next James Bond novel "King Zero" will be published later this year, authored by Mr Higson.  Here's an image of the cover...

A mysterious sounding title, and an interesting synopsis, make this novel's release a highly anticipated event.

Young Bond Promo Book

Back in 2007 a London newspaper included a promotional “book” for free with every copy sold.  The title was "The Young Bond Rough Guide To London".  Small in size at just 15cm x 11cm, and comprising only 64 pages, this promo item published by Puffin Books has become highly sought by collectors.

The promo book was given away as a tie-in between the publication of the Young Bond novels "Double Or Die" (January 2007) and "Hurricane Gold" (September 2007), both written by Charlie Higson.

Since I first became aware of this promo item in the early 2010's I've searched for it.  Here in Australia I'm not aware of any Young Bond promo items ever being available, so my searches have been limited to the internet and book hunts when I've been lucky enough to visit the UK.

It's taken several years but today I finally managed to acquire a copy of this elusive promo item.  Being so thin, thankfully the item was extremely well packed.

And here's some photos sans packaging...

This promo item arrived in great condition after it's journey by international mail from the other side of the world. Unortunately though it does have one fault, someone has written a previous sale price on the inside front cover. Sure the writing is in grey lead and can easily be erased, but the price itself is the problem... just GBP 20p.  I definitely paid a little bit more than that; postage alone was GBP £12.50!  Oh well, the book is safely in my collection now.

I'll be creating a new page on PizGloria.com to display all the Young Bond promo items in my collection.  More details soon...

Another 20th Anniversary Edition From Puffin Books

Charlie Higson's first Young Bond novel "SilverFin" was released 20 years ago this year.  To celebrate this event, Puffin Books have released not one but two anniversary editions almost simultaneously.

As previously mentioned the first edition was limited to just 300 copies, signed by the author and available exclusively through Ian Fleming Publications.

Then on February 3rd a general release anniversary edition was released.  I ordered my copy through the independent book store Benn's Books in East Brighton and it arrived in great condition last week.

Here's some photos of the later edition featuring a cover design based on a previous design by Kevin Walker.

And here's the two editions side by side for comparison.

It's amazing that Puffin Books have published two different 20th anniversary editions.   I'm not aware of this happening before in the Bond literary world.  I've even created a new page on PizGloria.com to display the three anniversary editions now in my collection.  Let's hope this pattern continues for other Young Bond titles.

PizGloria Celebrates 14 Years !

Today is the 14th anniversary of the launch of PizGloria.com.  I'm both pleased and very appreciative to everyone who has visited my website and I hope you enjoyed your time there and found it an interesting James Bond resource.

As usual I've gathered some stats from Google Analytics (GA4) for the last 12 months.  In total 6,420 users visited the website in the last year with an average duration of 1 minute and 6 seconds.  Also, most visitors directly accessed the website (they weren't referrals).

And while I was gathering these stats two people were active users (one in the UK and the other in the USA).  Soon they were joined by a third person from the USA, and all three remained active while I gathered these stats, which took at least 10 minutes as I still find GA4 a little hard to navigate.

That's all the interesting stats I could find.

As for PizGloria.com itself, I'm currently in the process of making it appear a little more modern and fresh, so apologies if there's some features not working 100%.

And if you haven't visited in a while, feel free to check it out again soon as I've added several new pages in the last year (see What's New for more details).  Also, all new book covers scanned have the 3D book view.  Eventually I'll retrospectively rescan all my older books so they will all have the 3D book view.

Thanks again, cheers Baz

ps. Thanks to my beautiful wife too for putting up with my collecting and purchasing.  We have spent many hours together visiting book shops around the world and your patience is amazing!

"SilverFin" 20th Anniversary Edition Arrives

Back in December 2025 I posted that Ian Fleming Publications were releasing a new paperback edition of Charlie Higson's "SilverFin" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its publication.  Today I received a copy of this edition in the mail, one of only 300 available.  

Published by Puffin Books, this edition has also been signed by Mr. Higson.  And the new cover design is, in my opinion, very mature looking for a "Young Bond" novel.  But you can be the judge from the photos below.  Personally I like it.

Merry Christmas 2025

Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope you had a great day with friends and family.

Santa was very kind to me this year as I received a few James Bond related books.

The first two presents were from my wife, two Raymond Benson proofs.  "Never Dream Of Dying" is from 2001 while "The Man With The Red Tattoo" is from 2002.  They're lovely additions to my collection and not that common.  They've also been signed by the author.

My second gift was from my parents, a Goldsboro edition of Vaseem Khan's "Quantum Of Menace".  This limited blue edition, again signed by the author, is a fabulous hardback.