European Holiday 2025 - London, England - Part 1

My wife and I are currently at Heathrow Airport, about to depart the UK.  We've spent seven days here, four of which were with family and friends.  The other three were spent sightseeing, relaxing, and of course book hunting.

After visiting several London bookstores my biggest surprise was how many Jonathan Capes (especially first editions) and John Gardner proofs were available for purchase within just a short distance of our hotel in Covent Garden.  We are certainly not this fortunate in Oz !

The first bookstore we found featuring Jonathan Cape hardbacks was Goldsboro Books on Cecil Court.  The very friendly staff even let me hold their first edition of Ian Fleming's "Live And Let Die".  Although it was my first visit to this store, I've purchased numerous modern first editions from them in the past.  I definitely recommend a visit to this store and checking out their limited edition hardbacks online.

Next bookstore was Peter Harrington Rare Books, where again I found everyone to be extremely helpful.  Despite immediately explaining I was only there to visit the store and check out what was available as I probably couldn't afford to buy anything, both my wife and I felt very welcome.

As you can see in the following photos, they had some lovely books for sale which also appear to be shown on their website.

Hatchards on Piccadilly was the third store.  They also had several secondhand Jonathan Capes behind the front counter.   I was fortunate to find a signed paperback edition of "A Spy Like Me" by Kim Sherwood on their shelves too.  This copy was published by Hemlock Press.

We did visit a fourth bookshop who allowed me to take these photos within their store but didn't want any promotion explaining "We'll handle our own promotions thankyou !".  As you can see they had plenty of Capes for sale as well as many vintage paperbacks.  I won't mention the store's name or location though to respect their wishes.

Sadly my holiday budget didn't extend as far as purchasing any of the Jonathan Capes shown, but in the next blog post you'll note I did manage to purchase a recently published hardback while also in London.

And finally, here's some photos of London:

Tower Bridge

Inside the Tower of London including a resident raven

Piccadilly Circus

European Holiday 2025 - Berlin, Germany

I'm currently sitting on a train with my wife on our way to Strasbourg, France.  We're leaving Berlin at 250 km/h after four nights spent at a fancy hotel.  Sadly I've still no James Bond book purchases to attribute to this trip.

I was very optimistic about finding James Bond books in Berlin.  I just needed two more paperbacks published in the 1960's/1970's to complete my Phoenix Shocker series of German language books... but finding them was not to be.

The question why is very clear; there were no secondhand book shops within a one hour radius of our hotel.  Sure there were plenty of book stores close by selling new books; Dussman, Thalia and Relay for a start.  But there were no antique or dusty old secondhand book stores that didn't require a train journey to a different German borough.  Well that's according to our research on Google Maps anyway.

So my Phoenix Shocker series will remain incomplete for now, still requiring a replacement copy of "Colonel Sun" (as my copy has some cover damage) and a copy of "Tod im Rückspiegel" which contains four Ian Fleming short stories taken from "For Your Eyes Only" or "Octopussy".  The image below is courtesy of a nice little website called Hefte.

Here's some photos from the new book stores we visited which included several James Bond titles:

Dussmann had two John Gardner - James Bond titles published by Cross Cult with cover designs by Michael Gillette.  I love this German series but only own one title, Robert Markham's "Colonel Sun".  The Dussmann book store we visited also had an English Bookshop at the rear that featured this copy of Ian Fleming's "Diamonds Are Forever" published by Ian Fleming Publications.

Thalia which we found in the Mall of Berlin.  They operated two stores adjacent to each other; one for German language books and the other for English.  I was unable to find any James Bond titles in either store.  There were some really nice German language books though.

Relay stores are common in many large train stations here in Europe but I found no Bond novels on this visit.

And finally, here's some photos from our travels in Berlin:

The most famous mural on the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall

The Reichstag building with its glass dome

The Brandenburg Gate

The TV Tower, ever visible when walking around Berlin, completed in 1969

Another section of remaining Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie

Some historic buildings, many from Museum Island