From the Library

Anthony Horowitz wrote three official Bond books, Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day, and With a Mind to Kill. It is no surprise to say that I have firsts of all of them. However, books two and three are signed copies, whilst book one is not. Annoying. At least until today. My eBay purchase arrived, and it is a fine copy of the Goldsboro limited and numbered, signed and special (note the different colouring - it is the middle one in the photo) edition of Trigger Mortis. So, now I have three, because as well as the UK first edition I'd also stumbled across a US first on holiday several years ago. That will probably do for now!

Couldn't resist taking the opportunity for a bit of London book-shopping around a meeting in the middle of the day, so headed over to Bloomsbury and found Maggs bookstore. Had seen them at fairs before, but hadn't been into the store. I was hoping that I might see firsts of the first two Asimov black widower books (see my previous post) which they have at the moment (see this link , which will no doubt be time limited). It feels to me like they are massively overpriced, particularly as I paid about £35 for book three, and much less for book four (which they have for £75). When I said to them that I might be interested in making a cheeky offer, they said that I was certainly welcome to do so by email and it would be considered. Anyway, lots of other interesting things in the store (including a full set of firsts of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone books, albeit they want £4,000 and it turns out from further research on their website that, whilst some are flat signed, some, incl...

Asimov, of course, wrote many books about many things. In amongst the output were collections of short stories, most of which had been previously published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, of the 'Black Widowers' Dining Club'. This was a fictional dining club, but most likely loosely based on the 'Trap Door Spiders', of which Asimov was a member. The conceit of the stories is simple and consistent. One of the members brings along a conundrum of some sort, normally embodied in a guest, and explains the situation to the others. All of the other members fail to solve the puzzle at hand, at which point the waiter Henry, who has been serving dinner and listening along, lays out the solution. Five books of Black Widower stories were published during Asimov's lifetime, and as of recently I have them all, through from Tales to Puzzles . There is a sixth book, published posthumously, The Return , which, as far as I can tell, didn't get a UK publication. Still...

After some fun and games with setting up an account (which J managed to figure out whilst I was otherwise occupied with a somewhat important prior engagement), we enjoyed participating in a Bond auction that was taking place in the US. We bid on about a dozen lots and were ultimately successful with four. We are now waiting to see how much is going to be added to our purchase prices for handling and international shipping costs ...! For the time being, here's a little clue as to what was purchased.

As has been well established in these pages, I do like a good charity-shop rummage but, having been a little bit busy over the last couple of weeks, my opportunities to venture out have been a little bit limited. So, I was delighted to discover that Oxfam have a rather marvellous online alternative to their physical stores. Going through their catalogue was almost as much fun as the real thing and, in some ways, possibly even a little bit better given the easy search function. The only downside is, of course, not being able to touch and feel your potential purchase before taking the plunge. However, all for a good cause and all that, so I thought I'd take my chances and order a few, OK a little over 20, books. And I was very glad I did. Delivery was extremely prompt over the course of the last week, albeit it did frustrate N a little as there were many separate parcels as they came from lots of different locations and book quality was generally excellent. As far as I am concerned, ...

After Benson (mentioned several times in previous posts) had finished his nine Bond books, there was a gap of six years before the next appeared, Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, which was published at the end of May 2008. To drum up enthusiasm for the new book, The Times ran a promotion earlier the same month and, over the course of a week, gave away some paperback copies of Fleming's works. They used the, rather lovely, Richard Fahey-designed paperbacks, which had been published about 18 months earlier, with some subtle amendments to the covers, including mentioning 'The Times' on the spine and inserting an advert for the new book on the back cover. Books one to five (Casino Royale up to From Russia with Love) were offered in the week beginning Monday 19 May 2008, but on the previous Saturday (17th) the promotion was introduced with the final book, Octopussy and, unlike all of the others, it was amended to make it a much shorter offering. The original, 2006, book had i...

Sunday morning and a trip to the barber before lunch with Nan, the Grand Prix on the telly, and a trip to the cinema to watch the new Lilo and Stitch. J didn't want to come just in case the changes to the film were too much for him and cherished childhood memories were ruined!! Of course the barber is a couple of doors away from a charity shop with a decent bookshelf. Amazingly, I've survived all this time without owning a copy of Douglas Adams' 'Last Chance to See'. And, the first part of it is about a trip to Indonesia. Still, situation rectified now.

On my previous return from far away, N took me to the Hyde Hall RHS gardens in Essex and, because it was such a warm and sunny day and we enjoyed ourselves so much (and the jetlag cure seemed to be so successful), we signed up for membership on the spot. Determined to extend the benefit, we toddled off to Wisley today, narrowly avoiding a satnav disaster along the way, but making it into an adventure instead. And, once again, it was glorious. I can see why Mum loved it so much, and I only wish I'd had the chance to enjoy it with her. We had a great visit, mostly contemplating what we will be doing with the couple of Norfolk acres we don't have yet. They are going to be superb. They already are in our imaginations! Saturday in the sunshine was topped off with barbecue organised by J whilst we were out. So, no time for book shopping, so I can but reflect on the charity finds from the week just finished, in amongst which we have a first of V2 to help the Harris firsts collection a...

I allowed myself to get a bit carried away last weekend and put in a couple of chunky online orders. One was from Harper Collins, but as they had a message on their site about a warehouse move or some such, I shouldn't expect anything from them for a couple of weeks. In any case, it was, in part, a pre-order for July. However, the other one was from Books2door and I finally caved in and bought the Dark Tower box set that I've been wanting for rather a long time. That turned out to be the thin end of the wedge as, once I'd noticed that they had all eight Slow Horses books for just over £20 which simply couldn't be refused, I was properly up and running. Then, into my stride, I had to get the Arthur Ransome set, just because they are things of beauty, because I will make great plans to work my way through them one day, because I have very happy memories of adoring Swallowdale (not S&A) as a child and, well, I only have to look at them to be reminded of Dad. Finally, a...