Clunes Booktown Festival Returns

For the first time in three years Clunes Booktown Festival took place this weekend.  

The two day event, inviting people to visit the small rural Victorian town, was thriving when my wife and I arrived on Saturday.  I've included a "few" photos below to try and express how the town shines during this festival and how many book sellers attended.  But there were also authors doing signings and talks, publishers explaining to future authors how to get an idea to print, people in costume exciting the crowds and others quoting paragraphs from popular books.  It's not possible to capture the full extent of this event in images.

It was impossible to look in every box or carefully view every trestle table however these are all the James Bond adventures, books about Bond or related/linked books we managed to find:

My wife ended up purchasing some nice books for herself.  Meanwhile I found an excellent copy of Robert Markham's "Colonel Sun" published by Pan Books in 1968 which I couldn't resist.

Overall my wife and I both thought the festival was very well organised and we'll definitely be back.

Raymond Benson Hardback Arrives

Today I received a first edition hardback of Raymond Benson's last James Bond adventure "The Man With The Red Tattoo" published in 2002 by Hodder and Stoughton.

Unfortunately the dust jacket is a little creased but I really can't gripe too much for the AU$12 I paid.  

In all the years I've been visiting Australian secondhand book stores I've never seen a copy of this hardback on the shelves so I reckon it's pretty rare here.  I really like the dust jacket too.

Finally, here's a photo of the rear flap which shows images of Mr Benson's five other Bond adventures.

Berkley Paperbacks Arrive

Earlier this week I received seven James Bond novels printed in the U.S. in the 1980's by Berkley Books.  I already have copies of these editions in my collection however this lot sale contained books that were described as "unread in fine condition", and on opening the box I was pleased to see the books were indeed so.

Six of the titles are by Ian Fleming, with one by John Gardner.  As soon as I can I'll scan these covers and replace the images on my website that aren't in as good condition.

I like this series simply because of the matching covers by different Bond authors.  There aren't many series featuring this crossover, the last by my recollection was a series of covers by Michael Gillette where further Robert Markham and John Gardner titles were released by the German publisher Cross Cult.  Sadly I only have one German continuation novel which is shown below.  They were all numbered in order on the spine too with this title being 15.

Lastly, if you'd like to know more info about the Berkley/Charter U.S. covers I refer you to this post by Jon Cox on The Book Bond website which was written in 2011.

PS: You may notice on the photos of the Berkley Books there's a hole punched in some of the covers.  This designated these books as remainders (ie. unsold stock) that had been returned by the bookseller to the publisher and they would have later been sold at a cheaper price.  Living in Australia any Berkley/Charter Books without these remainder marks are extremely rare.  The images of the covers on my website "may" have been photo-shopped to remove the remainder marks.

Mornington Lions Book Fair

This afternoon my wife and I visited the Mornington Lions Book Fair.  It's an annual book fair but our first visit.  

We arrived an hour before the doors closed for the day, but there was plenty of time and apparently we missed the crowds.  

The first thing we noticed was how amazingly well organised the book fair was.  There were hundreds of books in the brightly lit hall and large alphabetic letters on the trestle tables to separate the books by author's surname.  My wife and I found a number of James Bond novels or books around the character:

And I ended up purchasing these two hardbacks for $2 each.

My wife also picked up a few books and considered purchasing this title.  I'm not sure if I should be concerned !

The Mornington Lions Book Fair continues tomorrow until 4pm.  And as you can see there are plenty of Bond novels still available for anyone contemplating a visit.

Yarragon Annual Book Fair 2022

After two years absence (due to the global pandemic) the annual Yarragon Annual Book Fair returned this weekend.  My wife and I, along with my parents-in-law and sister-in-law travelled to the small Gippsland town to browse the second-hand books being sold to raise money for the local fire brigade.

On entry to the hall we were all amazed by the number of people who had also made the same journey.

My wife and I perused the many boxes of books and found the following Bond novels...

As I'm a little OCD I decided to group all the small Bond novels together in case another Bond collector decided to visit the book fair.  I only noticed the accidental position of "Never Say Never" above them when I was taking the photo.

No new Bond novels to add to my collection today however I purchased the following three unread paperbacks that were a bargain at just $1 each to add to my doubles box.

The book fair continues tomorrow, and in one years time I will return as optimistic as ever.