Some classy looking Collins Classics

I caught sight of the new Collins Classics series of novels in HMV (of all places) yesterday. The series includes the usual classic novels but the difference being that they have been given a more contemporary cover makeover. Most of the books feature photographic covers rather than detail of old paintings which has become the norm. They seem to be priced at £2.50 each although for some reason Jane Eyre was priced at £2.00.

Here are the covers to five of the books in the series: Emma, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights.



I do like these editions. I've bought three already and I expect I'll be buying a few more.

James Bond is back in Project X

Exactly a year from now we'll have another James Bond novel to read. The Ian Fleming copyright holders have announced that American crime author Jeffery Deaver will be writing a new James Bond novel (codenamed Project X) for publication on Ian Fleming's next birthday, 28 May 2011.

Deaver is one of those authors I've always meant to read so this should encourage me. I believe that he also has written an introduction to one of the recent Fleming paperback reprints from Penguin.

This will be the first new Bond novel since the centenary Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks that came out in 2008.

As an interesting (or not) footnote the book will be published by Deaver's publishers Hodder & Stoughton in the UK rather than Penguin. Hodder published various Bond books through the 1980s and 1990s before Penguin took over.

Find out more at www.ianfleming.com/project_x.asp and www.jamesbondprojectx.com/

Gerald Seymour's The Dealer and the Dead cover revealed

Thanks to Ross for alerting me that www.amazon.co.uk have put up the cover for Gerald Seymour's new novel, The Dealer and the Dead.


The cover art matches the design of the last year's novel The Collaborator. The publication date is still set for 8 July 2010.

Joe Poyer scans

I've just done a few cover scans of Joe Poyer's last three novels that were published back in the 1980s. The books are Devoted Friends, a novel set in the days of the Russian Revolution and Civil War and The Transgressors & Come Evil Days, the first two volumes of his unfinished WW2 epic, A Time of War.


You can find out more about Joe Poyer's books at my page Joe Poyer - a checklist (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chevron/joepoyer/index.html)