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tes tension and ambiguity when reading the books given that everything being said my turn out not to be one hundred per cent accurate deighton s hero is an unreliable narrator whose commentaries should be sifted not readily accepted it isn t that he deliberately sets out to hoodwink or misdirect us rather that his outlook is hampered by blind spots his entirely subjective account prevents him from presenting the whole picture or conveying the exact truth anomalies and distortions arise as deighton once explained what happens in the ipcress file and in all my other first person stories is found somewhere in the uncertainty of contradiction this makes for stimulating reading not a new insight but this essay explores well how the author makes the most of this with len deighton rather having fallen out of public consciousness since the turn of the century not surprising perhaps given his advanced age and non release of any new fiction during this period essays and evaluations of his writing are now seen sparingly in the uk media and online generally so when something like this essay does crop up it s interesting to see if the author has any new perspectives to offer on often familiar traits posted by deighton dossier at tuesday september 23 2025 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels len deighton writing wednesday 5 february 2025 duck confit anyone to paraphrase franz zappa who s often credited with the original quote writing about food is like dancing about architecture food is to be savoured tasted smelled talked over but in the right hands food writing can certainly be entertaining and offer up new insights into something we all do and enjoy len deighton primary subject of this blog and website as well as being a spy fiction author and historian is famously a long standing writer on the epicurian arts a pioneer indeed in some respects his cookstrips were regarded as something of a revolution in the somewhat staid world of food writing in the sixties but seemed to set the tone for the decade and with the action cook book it s often said that he helped give men permission to enter the kitchen and have fun in this new book i ve just found file it under books i didn t know were out there but when i found out about it i felt compelled to collected there s a short but fun contribution from the author recounting his experiences with food from cooking with his mother who was herself a domestic cook to eating in paris finest restaurants when he hit the big time as an author the book is a first edition of great dishes from the british gastronomic academy edited by allan hall and with a foreword by the famous food critic egon ronay published in the uk in 1988 as chronicled on this blog over half a lifetime of collecting mr deighton s books i ve got copies of all of his food related books the famous and the more obscure this book came out of left field as ephemera and rare books by authors often do from time to time and i snapped it up for a very reasonable price courtesy of the ever reliable adrian harrington rare books since purchasing it i have seen that a paperback edition seems subsequently to have been produced for a 120 page book there are only three pages of contributions by deighton two pages with a charming duck illustration and a recipe for pressed duck with attendant wine notes the autobiographical details shared in this book don t add a lot more granularity to tales that the author has recounted in his other cookbooks or in magazine and news articles but they are nonetheless interesting and well written he writes about being a teenager in paris after the war and staying in a garret room at the top of a very small hotel near the station his base from which to discover the city s food now i was in paris he writes i knew i had to go to the most famous restaurant in the world la tour d argent i don t know paris restaurants but it sounds suitably grand for the sixties there he ordered pressed duck and was greeted by a sad look from the waiter he writes he whispered as if saving me from the humiliating consequences of my ignorance that the pressed duck i wanted was only served to two people to cut the duck in half for one person was not possible i understood i was devastated but decided that desperate situations call for desperate measures i ll have two portions i said and he did and the author goes on to recount his tale of that first dish in paris which arguably influenced his later passion for french food which he then wrote about in numerous successful cookbook and he writes in the book he still has the numbered card given by the restaurant to patrons who eat this magnificent dish for readers who wanted to recreate that dish like other contributors to the book deighton enlisted the help of young london chef prue leith now of bakeoff fame of course to share the full recipe ingredients and cooking instructions a great little find and like some of my best finds as a book collector a smashing surprise which i shall shelve with great pleasure alongside my other deighton cookbooks posted by deighton dossier at wednesday february 05 2025 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels cooking len deighton sunday 9 june 2024 to the collector the spoils last month i explored the firsts rare book fare in london s saatchi gallery i went with a good friend of mine who as well as being a fellow deighton collector is one of the world s top ian fleming collectors with a collection that is the envy of many funeral in berlin at a price tbere were plenty of ian flemings on show a complete collection of first editions would set you back 145 000 but there were also a good number of deighton first editions on show the nicest of which was the funeral in berlin with the michael caine wraparound at nearly 2000 above there were naturally books from every possible author you could think of classic and modern and covering both fiction and non fiction alike the size of the show and the prices of the flemings and other star books 11 000 for a first edition harry potter point to two things one even in this digital age there remains a market for both books and rare books and two prices while they may seem outrageous continue to reflect the old economic adage of supply and demand some books are clearly more in demand than others why does an ian fleming first edition of casino royale cost anywhere up to 25 000 whereas a first edition of ss gb by len deighton or the fourth protocol by frederik forsyth cost maybe 50 to 110 lots of factors i suppose with fleming timing the publication of casino royale in the fifties as the uk emerged from the privation of rationing but with the heroism of the war still fresh in people s minds is one thing the desire of readers for escapism and adventure too of course fleming s connections in the publishing and media world helped launch the series of course plus they re clearly very readable books still the films of course also boosted popularity of anything associated with james bond not least the rare book market my fleming collecting pal regaled me of stories of first editions passed on decades ago when on offer at a tiny fraction of the current market price with regret in his voice fleming collecting requires deep pockets john le carre was perhaps the author whose rarities at the show were starting to aspire to fleming prices and collectability with some first editions of the spy who came in from the cold demanding 4 000 to 5 000 or more and many other of his books heading north of 2 000 a short like most other forms of collecting as decades go by scarcity increases and prices necessarily do too despite the best efforts of the dealers at the show and book dealers around the world to find preserve and bring to market lost treasures and ephemera inevitably editions will disappear from circulation be destroyed get defaced or simply mislaid in my experience as a collector of deightons it is the very scarcity of some books and items that makes them attractive as collectable items that and the obvious factors of great story telling and interesting cover designs of course but the scarcer something is the more a collector will want it a relative bargain based on the median prices evident elsewhere at firsts on this blog over the years i ve made posts about a number of super rare items that i ve been lucky enough to find sometimes after an intense search sometimes just through dumb luck and there is a frisson of excitement whether at a rare book far a second half bookshop or online whenever something rare comes up the dealers at the show understand this and create value for themselves and collectors by scouring the globe for rare items and bringing them together at shows like firsts where some will dig into their pockets while other visitors will just look on and admire as i did on that day rarity in the case of ian fleming books means eye wateringly high prices because the world of fleming collecting is for the upper echelons of the collecting world the heavy hitters the big guns the top collectors know the top dealers personally they all know their clients want lists and know the value of repeat business to both parties and of discretion it s a fascinating relationship to understand at this rarified end of the book collecting world with len deighton s books prices are more reasonable on the whole of course first editions of the ipcress file billion dollar brain funeral in berlin and horse under water do attract quite high prices being now so limited in number for example the ipcress file pictured below was going for 2 450 but then other editions like the ss gb shown above were more reasonable at 70 as supplies remain good given the large print runs these books got compared to earlier stories rarity of any author s books means higher prices i started collecting deighton s because i enjoyed the books and found them an affordable and relatively straightforward option to collect so while i ve spent good money on the odd rare item i ve never had to break the bank and go beyond my means if you re a fan of ian fleming or john le carre starting a collection now as opposed to thirty years ago is now pretty much out of the question for many people who knows what the next ian fleming will be will there ever be another popular fiction writer that dominates the new and rare book markets as he did of modern authors i think right now j k rowling is starting to show signs of being the modern standard setter for rare and collectable book prices judging by what i saw at the show but then there s no rhyme or reason sometimes to why some authors are popular and pricey while some can be purchased for virtually nothing something can always change a film often help and propel an author into the collecting stratosphere i think one such author who could become as collectable as len deighton or john le carre is mick herron whose slow horses series of books is now judging by what i saw at first eminently collectable and rising up the charts the popular tv series may also drive interest in the original books too i remember discussing with my pal in the pub afterwards that book collecting like records or stamp collecting could be seen as a form of addiction in a way the desire for just one more book for the collection is powerful it s not for nothing perhaps that the stands at the show were peopled by book dealers but as addictions go it s fairly benign no one really gets harmed by it both sides sellers and buyers benefit from the transaction and both help preserve our literary history one book at a time which in this electronic on demand screen driven world can t be a bad thing posted by deighton dossier at sunday june 09 2024 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels collecting friday 8 december 2023 harry palmer on the town recently i found online after searching for it for over ten years a copy of town magazine from july 1966 with a great feature written at the time that the funeral in berlin film was being made in the west german capital town magazine was in the sixties one of the first true men s magazines in its broadest sense obviously being the sixties there are features on pretty girls including girls featuring in bond films but there are like playboy had at the time in the states plenty of articles on deep topics around politics science culture etc town is a far cry from the nineties lads mags in the uk like zoo and loaded what comes across strongly in this feature is that one film in michael caine was still not yet a global superstar more he was an up and comer but you already get from reading this article a sense that he was on a trajectory to stardom what s fascinating about finding and reading through decades old magazines is seeing just how different the adverts are and what consumer sensibilities advertisers appealed to the back cover is for cigarettes and there are adverts for sports cars tailored suits after shave and terylene trousers anyway take a look at the article son of ipcress read more posted by deighton dossier at friday december 08 2023 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels funeral in berlin harry palmer monday 21 august 2023 sprechen sie deutsch english i have recently picked up a very rare and interesting book the german first hardback edition of the ipcress file i ve never seen a copy before sure there are plenty of german paperback taschenbuch editions out there from the sixties from this and the other harry palmer novels but until now i d never seen this particular edition it s around 1cm shorter and 1 5cm narrower than the uk first edition i ve noticed for many years that with other german editions the range of standard sizes differs ever so slightly to english and us publishing standards which you can see when they re aligned on the bookshelf plus on the spine and i ve always preferred this germans present the title from the bottom up whereas english publishers present it top down perhaps because i m left handed somehow it seems to make more sense the cover image is very spy fiction the disembodied eye what s more interesting is that the back cover of the book published three years after the uk first edition has the famous photo of len deighton lunching with ian fleming and the inside dust jacket flap has more information about other james bond books the publisher scherz has produced i speak reasonable german though i wouldn t say i m fluent so it s interesting to dip into the book and read a familiar story with familiar characters in an unfamiliar for them language it gives you a keen understanding of the role of the translator his or her job is never to simply offer direct translations of each word or sentence or just to parse one syntax into another read more posted by deighton dossier at monday august 21 2023 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