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 !

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.

Another City Visit

More than a year ago my wife and her sister bought tickets to "Romeo And Juliet" performed by the Australian Ballet  The tickets were for seats just a few rows from the orchestra pit and the stage.  Covid delayed the performance and then sadly my sister-in-law passed away a few months ago.  So this afternoon I attended the ballet with my wife instead.

Prior to the show we grabbed some lunch in the City, crossing the swollen Yarra River due to the recent floods, and also visiting City Basement Books.

City Basement Books always seems to have a good turnover of books.  

Today they had a hardback copy of "The Politics Of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels To The Big Screen" by Jeremy Black which I have only ever seen previously online.  I managed to resist purchasing it though.  There were also several Bond continuation novels by Robert Markham, John Gardner, Anthony Horowitz and Jeffery Deaver.  No purchases from me today though.

As for the ballet, I've previously seen "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake" and to be honest I thought they were meh, but this ballet was fantastic.  I guess it also helped already knowing the story too.  I know my sister-in-law would have loved it too.  Here's a couple of photos I took before the performance:

U.S. Versions Of "Carte Blanche"

It used to be rare to meet fellow James Bond book collectors.  Fortunately with the advent of the internet, online forums and Facebook groups it's now much easier to chat with like-minded bibliophiles.

On the weekend I caught up with a fellow collector here in Melbourne, Victoria.  It's the first time I've met another Bond collector in my own country.  He was selling some unwanted books from his collection to create more shelf space for other more desirable titles.  As well as the opportunity to see his collection (and what a great book collection it was) I was also able to purchase a paperback from him that I had a feeling could have slight cover differences to a similar copy on my own shelves.

The paperback in question was a copy of Jeffery Deaver's "Carte Blanche" published by Pocket Books in the U.S. in 2012.  At first when he handed me the book I immediately thought there was a very minor cover difference.  But on bringing the book home I realised the difference was much more noticeable.

Here's the copy I purchased.  The text appears to be a grey/white colour:

And here's my original copy.  The text appears to be more silver on the cover:

But those differences are minor when you place the books side by side.  Here they're also accompanied by the trade size paperback:

The size difference was an unexpected surprise.  Here's the back covers too:

The copy I purchased was "For International Sale" while my copy was a first U.S. printing.

It's always nice to still find these surprises.  However now I'm wondering if there are other variations of U.S. paperback printings of this title out there ?  I suppose only time will tell.

Warragul Book Fair 2022

My wife and I have just returned from Warragul in Gippsland.  Warragul, located 100km from Melbourne on the Princes Highway, is primarily known for its dairy produce.  However today we visited for the annual book fair held by the Lions Club.

Entry was gold coin donation with all money going to the local hospital and the Lions Club.  Walking into the hall was a strange feeling due to the lockdowns over the last two years cancelling these type of events.  So it was great to finally have an event like this back and be amongst people and books again.

My wife and I scoured all the tables of books and the only James Bond novel we found was this copy of "Carte Blanche" by Jeffery Deaver.

The Warragul Book Fair continues tomorrow (Sunday).  And in two weeks time (April 9 and 10) the next town along, Yarragon, will also be holding their own book fair to raise money for the local country fire brigade.  We'll be going to that one too and hopefully we'll see you there.

Lions Club Book Sale This Weekend In Glen Waverley

I've just returned from a book sale organised by Lions Australia in Glen Waverley, VIC.  The sale is on till 4 today and midday tomorrow.  The books were all second hand, in great condition, really cheap and amazingly well organised.  No luck for me today although I did find a couple of Bonds by Jeffery Deaver and Sebastian Faulks.