Birthday Surprise

It's my birthday today and my lovely wife organised a special gift for me, a proof copy of Vaseem Khan's first "Q Mysteries series" novel "Quantum Of Menace".

I've been hunting for this "Uncorrected proof" from the U.K. for over six months, so I was stoked when I unwrapped it this morning.

The front cover of the trade size book features the subtle single alphabetic character "Q", the code name of the main protagonist of the novel. The rear cover reads "Pay Attention", a famous quote from the film "Goldfinger" during a meeting between James Bond (Sean Connery) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn).

The book was published in 2025 by Zaffre, an imprint of Bonnier Books.

Yarragon Annual Book Fair 2026

My wife and I missed last year's book fair in Yarragon as we were about to travel overseas.  This year, along with her parents, we travelled the 230km round trip to Yarragon in Gippsland to hunt for books.

I'm always optimistic of finding some great condition vintage James Bond paperbacks at this event.  Every year there's always new stock which has been donated by the local community for the benefit of their local fire brigade.

As always the hall was full of people, many of whom had also travelled the Princes Highway from Melbourne to be there.

Unlike previous years this was the only Bond related book I encountered, a copy of Jeffery Deaver's novel "Edge" which featured a small circle on the cover promoting his forthcoming (at the time) Bond novel "Carte Blanche".  As I already have this book in my collection I left it for another possible Bond collector to discover.

No Bond novels for me this year.  But that's just part of the book hunt.  My wife and her Dad were more fortunate with both of them managing to find some new reading material.

A wander through the local shops and art gallery, the carrot cake from the Yarragon Bakery and a delicious lunch at the town pub rounded off an enjoyable day out before our drive home.