John Gardner Sniper Series Purchase

One of my favourite John Gardner - James Bond paperback series is the Sniper series, named because of the sniper sight that appears on each book cover.  When this set was published by Coronet Books in the UK around 1986, Mr Gardner had only completed the five titles which are included: "Licence Renewed" (white cover), "For Special Services" (red cover), "Icebreaker" (black cover), "Role Of Honour" (blue cover) and "Nobody Lives For Ever" (teal cover).  

Meanwhile in Canada, General Books (linked to Coronet in the UK) concurrently published this series.  The covers of each title by General were almost identical to the Coronet printings, except strangely for "Nobody Lives For Ever" which had a red colour cover instead of teal.  So while there are five titles in this series there are six different covers to collect.

I've previously written a post about this series when I purchased a second Coronet copy of "Nobody Lives For Ever".   Today's post is inspired by the purchase of a second copy of "For Special Services".  It's not in quite as good condition as my current copy, but it's unread with a lovely condition cover and at just $16 it was hard to refuse.

Now I have two titles of a second series of this lovely set.

Christmas Break Book Hunt

During the warmer weather around Christmas my wife and I like to head to the beach for a day-trip when we can.  The Mornington Peninsula has some of the best beaches in Victoria and the town of Mornington is one place we always like to visit.

There are three book shops in Mornington.  Farrell's Bookshop, an independent general book store selling new books, and two secondhand book stores; Chapter House Books and Books By The Bay.

Last time we visited Chapter House Books there was a sign on the front window that read "Business For Sale".  On this visit I was pleased to see the sign gone and the store full of customers.  As always the store was well stocked and neatly organised but sadly no books for me.

Next we visited Books By The Bay but again it was closed.  We always seem to pick the wrong day to drop by.

For lunch we drove to Hastings where we stopped by a busy op-shop.  They had a couple of Bond related titles too.

Then we called by the Tyabb Packing House Antiques.  Unfortunately it turns out the entire book section has gone.  They used to have a designated section just for Bond titles but alas no more.

On our return trip to suburbia we stopped at a large Vinnies op-shop in Moorabbin I'd read about on-line.  And as the review had promised the place was huge and there were heaps of books.  I found a few Bond adventures but no luck as I had them all.  Still, I will return with fingers crossed next time.

No new additions to my collection from this book hunt, however the beach we visited on the Mornington Peninsula was too nice not to include a few pics here...

Coronet Sniper Series Replacement

The first paperback printing of John Gardner's fifth James Bond adventure "Nobody Lives For Ever" was published by Coronet in 1986.  The cover features an image of a sniper sight aiming at a boat and a silhouette of Bond in front of "007" text.  

As the years have passed I've realised this printing is not very common.  It may have even had a limited release only in the UK as I never saw this edition for sale in new bookstores here in Australia back in the 1980's.  I only discovered this cover existed in the late 1990's.  

There were few websites displaying James Bond book covers back then, especially continuation novels.  And online websites selling books wasn't anywhere as big as it is today.  Finding this cover in a second-hand book store was a real surprise, especially as there were already four other titles with matching covers in my collection.  Those titles were reprints of the first four of Gardner's Bond adventures; "Licence Renewed" (white), ""For Special Services" (red), "Icebreaker" (black) and "Role Of Honour" (dark blue).   For want of a name I called these covers the Coronet Sniper Series.

Now I'm pretty picky.  The original copy I found wasn't in great condition compared to the other four I had in my series and it's always been a bugbear of mine.  It's taken a long time but recently I found and purchased a replacement copy.  Here's the two of them together.  The copy on the right is the new one.  It has a couple of texta marks on the back cover hiding the printed price but the spine is lovely and overall the copy appears unread.

And here's the new copy with the other four in the series.  The last copy, with the red cover, is the same title published by Coronet-General in Canada.  I still have no idea why they changed the colour from light blue/teal to red in Canada, especially as "For Special Services" was already printed in red, but it's an added bonus of this series.

Finally, this is the card that accompanied the book from the overseas seller.  I like these extra details from sellers.

"Licence Renewed" 40th Anniversay Edition

John Gardner's first James Bond adventure "Licence Renewed" had it's 40th anniversary last year and Orion Books celebrated the event by republishing the novel in paperback form.  It also included a new introduction by M. J. Arlidge.  Here in Australia the paperback was said to be available last year in late November however due to the global pandemic and international freight issues I have only just managed to acquire a copy two months, and a new year, later.

I ordered the book through my closest Dymocks Bookstore.  This store shut its doors a few years ago but has since re-opened in a new location near the Rivoli Cinema in Camberwell and I was very happy to spend my money there.  I hope this new store does well.

Something I've never noticed before is how much thicker "Licence Renewed" is compared to the previously re-published Gardner novel "For Special Services" two years ago by Orion.  Here's some photos:

I'm hoping Orion Books continue this John Gardner series of Bond adventures with "Icebreaker" later this year.  No news yet but fingers crossed.

Piz Gloria Website Celebrates 10th Birthday

Today marks the 10th birthday of PizGloria.com.  There have only been a few additions to this website over the past year but I'm pleased that the website is still visited and referenced by book collectors and James Bond fans alike.  Hopefully with the release of Anthony Horowitz's new Bond novel "With A Mind To Kill" in May 2022 and perhaps another John Gardner reprint ("Icebreaker" ?) there's still more paperbacks to be added.

Some quick stats from Google Analytics about PizGloria.com over the last 10 years:

- There have been 45,601 visits

- Each visitor on average views 6.01 pages (that's 274,062 total page views over the years)

- The average time a visitor spends on the website is 3 minutes and 7 seconds

- The bounce rate is 54.93%.  This is the rate at which visitors leave the website without interacting (I imagine they've found my website and realised it's of no interest to them or they don't have any spare time at that moment to have a look).

I'd like to say thankyou to everyone who has supported my website, visited the website or been in touch with me over the 10 years, and I hope you visit again soon,

Cheers Baz

Rosebud Vintage Bazaar

Yesterday my wife and I visited the Rosebud Vintage Bazaar which is just off Point Nepean Road on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria.  It was pure luck finding this place as we didn't know it existed prior to noticing the sign at the front entrance.

Inside the large warehouse type building were many stalls containing hundreds of items for sale.  These included books, toys, clothes, knick-knacks, CD/DVD's and furniture.  

My wife and I scoured each stall for Bond related items and managed to find a hardback book club edition of John Gardner's "Licence Renewed" and three plastic Gilbert figures from the 1960's of Dr. No, Goldfinger and M.  The items were inexpensive however I decided not to buy them as I already had the book and didn't really need the figures.  I will definitely return though.

A Trip To Daylesford

Last Monday my wife and I spent a day in Daylesford.  The drive took just under two hours and we arrived at 10am, just as the Mill Markets were opening.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the building from the outside (it's basically a giant shed), but here's one I've borrowed from their website.

Inside the building there are seemingly hundreds of stalls, many selling books.  As you can see below I took a few pics however to avoid repetition I only included one photo of Sebastian Faulks' "Devil May Care".  It was very popular at many of the other stalls too.

About an hour and a half later we left the Mill Markets and drove into Daylesford proper.

Here we visited Paradise Bookshop.  I managed to find five Bond novels in the store including a Jonathan Cape first edition of Ian Fleming's "Live And Let Die".  It was a nice copy but my wife wouldn't let me buy it.  Only gagging... it was a little bit over my budget !

I also found this unusual copy of "Devil May Care"... which again I didn't purchase for different reasons (this version is obviously not a Bond novel).  What is it with Daylesford and "Devil May Care" ?  They're everywhere !

After lunch we visited the Book Barn just near Daylesford Lake.  Here I purchased my first book of the day, a Pan copy of Robert Markham's "Colonel Sun".  I already have several copies of this paperback however as it was in such good condition I thought one more wouldn't hurt.  They also had a copy of John Gardner's "Licence Renewed" and another "Devil May Care".

After visiting the Book Barn we returned home just managing to avoid peak hour.  Here's some more photos from the day...

The drive to Daylesford

Daylesford Lake

Lunch at Cafe Koukla.  I had a delicious beer battered fish and chips, and my wife roast chicken with sweet potato chips.