James Bond Archives book from Taschen

Anybody ordering this one? $200 retail for the bare-bones version (the ones with Craig signed versions or Ken Adam signed versions cost a lot more), but Amazon has it for $125 right now.

My wife got me the KUBRICK ARCHIVES book from them (the first version, with the 70mm frame from the movie) many years back, and it is still a very nice resource (kinda wish I had a piece of furniture to hold this book alone, sort of like the Thatcher Library in KANE), and I've been tempted on this new one, though ART OF BOND makes me think they just don't get the right people to do these books.

I have Taschen's book on Kubrick's NAPOLEON. Quite impressive.

Regarding THE JAMES BOND ARCHIVES would wait for the price to drop (and it probably will drop lower than $125 once SKYFALL has departed from theaters). There's no indication that it contains anything revelatory, though I'm sure it's nice enough.

I found one review a couple days back that raved about the images but made the expected observation that you are always aware that the 'official' view is being represented. So I guess Steve Rubin and John Brosnan (is he even still alive?) weren't involved.

Harmsway wrote:

There's no indication that it contains anything revelatory, though I'm sure it's nice enough.

Exactly. These books are excellent, but I'd probably only pay $100, tops.

My only concern is if there's actually any new information in the book, and not just new pictures. Because if it isn't then i think that the book isn't worth it's price.

I saw ALL ABOUT BOND in a store last week and was favorably impressed with the pics and some of the choices for text (only really studied the Honor Blackman chapter, which includes the bikini beach still with PUSSY written in the sand.) Have a feeling I may pop for this instead of ARCHIVES. Certainly less expensive.

Didn't realize I had started this thread over a decade back, but wanted to report that I picked up a used copy of the original release for about sixty bucks wel before NTTD came out, when I thought I was going to be doing multiple articles on it and could consider it a business expense (thanks SO much for utterly failing to deliver over a period of 20+ months, MGM PR, ya louses!)

Anyway, recently did more than look at the pics, and found there is actually a fair amount of content that is new to me, such as describing a version of OCTOPUSSY involving Blofeld framing Bond for M's assassination and Blofeld 'owning' M's successor, sort of like it was the basis for SPHINCT-, er SPECTRE. Also didn't know Donald Westlake did the first pass on what became TOMORROW NEVER DIES. The book includes CR67 and NSNA

The quality of the images is just unbelievably good, far above the Taschen Kubrick in my opinion, and a part of me just wants to tear about a half-dozen out and have them professionally framed.

Man, I so wish I could justify that new KEN ADAM book from Taschen as a business expense (it's a thousand bucks!) I've always hated people who camp out in bookstores and read the tomes rather than buy them (I used to manage bookstores), but I have to think that if I came across a non-shrinkwrapped copy of this someplace, I would probably not be able to help myself from conducting an extended review of the contents. The only bookstores up here are Powell's and B&N, and when they get high-end stuff, it always remains in the shrink, so I will almost certainly not get the opportunity to act out that way.