It is 60 years this month (21st November) that Wilbur Smith’s first book was published in hardback namely ‘When The Lion Feeds’ Two years later PAN published it in paperback and it went on to sell over a million copies earning Wilbur a ‘Golden PAN Award’ This was to be the first of his twenty two of these awards. To celebrate the 60th anniversary Zaffre are reissuing it with the cover from 2018 but this one has a 60th sticker. There is a possibility that in South Africa it could be reissued with the PAN Hans Helweg cover from 1970 which is one of my favourites, This could tie in with the opening of the Wilbur Smith Museum in Cape Town. We shall have to wait and see.
In a recent edition of the ‘Fortean Times’ there was a letter from a reader about a mysterious vanishing/moving book. My son has this magazine and thought I might be interested as the book in question, complete with photograph, was ‘More Tales of Unease’ edited by John Burke from 1969 with the weird creepy cover. There was also a mention of ‘The Fourth Ghost Book’ edited by James Turner from 1968.
PAN published at least four of the thirteen titles written by Alvin Toffler (04/09/1928 to 27/06/2016) Wikipedia states “He was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide.Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed “information overload”. In 1970, his first major book about the future, ‘Future Shock’, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies. He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, ‘The Third Wave’, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication”
Having enjoyed the films ‘Paddington’ and ‘Paddington 2’ we were looking forward to ‘Paddington in Peru’ but I have to say I was a little disappointed apart from the ‘smelly’ poster which smells of oranges when you rubbed them. It was on one of the large screens and there were all six of us in the cinema which may say something. I felt it lacked the subtle humour and interesting story lines of the previous two but then again maybe I’m not the audience it’s aimed at. PAN published several ‘Paddington’ titles under the Piccolo inprint with artwork by Fred Banbery.
