Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours with Brian Sanders and his wife Lizzie in their studio. ‘Sandy’ has produced a phenomenal amount of artwork over the years which has been seen all round the world. These range from book covers to stamps to medals to magazine illustrations to wine labels to Readers Digest etc. He has painted covers for Arrow, Fontana, Collins and Penguin to name a few but to me, more importantly, PAN Books. It was a privilege to see the originals for the 1970’s Steinbeck and Hornblower series plus many more. I am currently trying to track down copies of several of his covers, some of which are ascribed on the back, but most are not. I’ll put a message on the blog when I have completed it.

I have just acquired a 30″ X 20″ poster for PAN X461 ‘Hammerhead’ by James Leasor and if it hadn’t have been PAN I’m not sure I’d have bought it as it must be the dullest, most unattractive poster ever – unless you can prove me wrong?

I’m always on the look out for PAN Books counter displays, the sort of thing thrown out as soon as the promotion was over. I know someone who has a couple and I’ve salesmens catalogues showing them but no luck up to now when I managed to get a display for ‘The Conscripts’ by Walter Winward measuring 17″ by 14″ so if anyone else is throwing any out ……….

It seems like years ago that I was talking to Jon Gilbert about his forthcoming publication ‘Ian Fleming: The Bibliography’ but it looks like it’s nearly here at last. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to buy a copy at £175 but I have read there will be a trade edition later.
Jon says it shows 95% of the PAN editions so there’s the challenge for all us PAN Fans, have we got the missing 5%?

To see the flier with all the book details click HERE and to read an interview with Jon Gilbert on Spy Vibe click HERE