PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

Monthly Archives: April 2014

Can you judge a book by its cover?

I’ve been after a 2nd edition copy of ‘The Speed System of Basic Mathematics’ Piper MP86 1968 for a while but every time it appeared infrequently on eBay someone always outbid me. I’ve now managed to get it from a seller on Amazon but I have to say it must be one of the most boring covers around and on looking at other Pipers from that time there are several more just as dull. My selection appears below and if there are any you want to nominate we’ll have a poll for the worst!. The first edition of the Trachtenberg was not amongst my favourite covers but it was more adventurous than these.

In the last blog I queried if the monogram that looked as if it was made up of a G, d and an A was Gino d’Achille? Having looked at his website more closely I found an example picture which clearly shows it is his although he often just put GD.Gino

A Couple of Things

Just planning our summer trip continuing our journey along the south coast and this time it’s two weeks in Dorset having ‘done’ Kent, Sussex and Hampshire in previous years. As usual I’m trying to combine (PAN) business with pleasure and in the past have included visits to two despatch centres, ex PAN employees, places associated with authors and a couple of cover artists. So far I have one spealist printers line up so if anyone has any more suggestions please let me know. Also any recommendations for book shops but they seem to be few and far between.

While in Shropshire I picked up a copy of “Frenchman’s Creek’ by Daphne du Maurier which has never been opened let alone read. It was while looking for an artists name I spotted a monogram on the back which I think is made up of a G, a d and an A. I would surmise that this is Gino d’Achille.
Creek

PS Happy Birthday to my quote “long suffering wife”

PAN Books Spotting in Historic Places 2

Just back from a six day tour of Shropshire to try out our new motorhome. The vehicle was excellent, it was just the lack of second hand bookshops that spoilt the trip. I visited the two I knew of in Much Wenlock and found an interesting looking one in Cleobury Mortimer with the helpful sign in the window “We are open sometimes” It was closed!
Following on from a blog of July 2012 I did find PAN Books in another historic venue namely Wightwick Manor  The house belonged to the Mander (Paints) family and has a fine collection of arts and crafts paintings, glass and ceramics plus furnishings by William Morris but it was in the Day Nursery I spotted something much more valuable on the top shelf of a bookcase namely 4 PAN titles.NuseryThe 4 titles are GP33 ‘Boldness Be My Friend’, 397 ‘The Last Enemy’, GP76 ‘Squadron Airborne’ and 273 ‘The Colditz Story’

Wilbur Smith Golden PAN Awards

I came across Wilbur Smith on Facebook and was pleased to see a picture of him holding one of his Golden PAN Awards for selling a million copies of “When The Lion Feeds” and I’ve scanned in some of his other book covers as well (I’ll be adding the mid 70’s and late 80’s George Sharp covers ASAP)
API particularly like the 1970 ones reused in the late 70’s but then spoilt by having one as a film tie-in which has happened before with the 1973 James Bond series or the 80’s Nevil Shute’s. The covers from around 1980 acknowledge the artist as Kevin Tweddell who is a member of Artist Partners along with fellow PAN Book cover artists Brian Sanders, Roger Coleman, Gino d’Achille and George Sharp.