This week I will be assembling and then stocking 600 feet of books shelves which are stacked in my ‘library’ This is about three quarters of the amount I think I can fit in with the rest becoming available when the book stacks on the floor get transferred to the shelves. The ones in the photo are later titles with ISBN’s which will be shelved in alphabetical order.

I was pleased to get a ‘comment’ last week from Bert Whetstone who said:

“I’ve been a fan of Koziakin’s “Mazes” series of books since I was a kid in the 1970s. These are the books titled like “Mazes 2” and they were a bit more complex than the “Mazes For Fun” series.
Information on Koziakin is hard to come by, but a few months ago I bought a 1973 jigsaw puzzle maze by Koziakin which had some information about him on the back of the box.
Koziakin is of Russian descent, born in Yugoslavia during WWII. His family immigrated to the USA from Germany in 1947, to the east side of NYC. In the late 60’s he worked as a Graphic Artist for NBC on The Tonight Show and The Today Show. He began publishing his maze books in April 1971.
As it turns out he also produced maze greeting cards and a 6-foot “hanging maze” banner. The “hanging maze” along with the maze jigsaw were manufactured by Gameophiles Unlimited which seems to have been a small specialty gaming manufacturer located in NYC.
Aside from that, I have reason to believe Koziakin is still alive and resides in northeast New York state. But that’s all I can tell you”

After looking through US Whitepages I replied to Bert to say I’d found a Vladimir  Koziakin living at Redkill RD, Fleischmanns, NY 12430 but I’d also found a death record for someone of the same name. Unfortunately as my wife’s subscription to Ancestry is only for the UK I couldn’t check it the States.

In July 1973 the ‘Daily Mirror’ used two of Koziakin’s mazes on their ‘Junior Mirror’ page and also mention that PAN Book 2 was available. You can see them HERE if you scroll down. This might just be me but I was amused by the advert for ‘painful piles’ next to the maze. The only painful piles I’ve had lately is when stacks of books have fallen on my head but hopefully soon to be a thing of the past!

I’ve realised, after the reference last week to ‘PAN as seen on television’ I’ve not got a page for ‘PAN as seen in films’ as now, thanks to a suggestion from Robin Harbour, I’ve found a PAN featured in the film ‘The Spy With A Cold Nose’. Any more references grateful received.

I’ve also got a screen shot from the TV series ‘Grand Designs’ thanks to Bazeer Fulmore in Australia who spotted a shelf full of Shute titles. Bazeer runs the fantastic www.pizgloria.com site and I’ve appointed him my Australian agent (maybe I should tell him this?) This edition of ‘Grand Designs’ featured a property in Northern Ireland first shown in the UK in September 2017. We used to watch GD but Kevin McCloud who presents it is so full of ‘doom and gloom’ as to the outcome because they’ve not got a project manager etc, which always resolves itself after the last adverts, we’ve stopped watching it. Looks like we may need to start again.