Hello Friends!

Quite a bit of news for you...

I will be making an appearance at the New York opening of the BOND
BOUND EXHIBIT of James Bond book cover artwork throughout the years.
My anthology of 007 novels, THE UNION TRILOGY, will be launched there
on Saturday, October 18. The exhibit will be at Bonhams Gallery at
580 Madison Avenue. MONEYPENNY DIARIES author Samantha Weinberg and JAMES BOND--THE MAN & HIS WORLD author Henry Chancellor will also be present. Watch the Appearances page of RaymondBenson.com for exact time, to be announced.

Many appearances throughout October, November, and December have been
announced. The Chicago area book launch of THE UNION TRILOGY will be
October 25. Other Chicago area appearances have been scheduled. I
will also visit St. Louis, Missouri, for the first time in December.
Possible appearances in ITALY will take place Halloween weekend.
Watch the Appearances page for more details!

I have been signed to write the last of six planned pulp adventure
novels to be published by Hard Case Crime. The books feature the
character GABRIEL HUNT and will be in the tradition of Sax Rohmer,
Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, and Indiana Jones. Each book
will be by different authors, credited to the fictional hero Hunt
(but the actual authors will be credited on the cover page). The
other authors are Christa Faust, James Reasoner, David J. Schow,
Nicholas Kaufmann, and Charles Ardai. My book is entitled HUNT
THROUGH NAPOLEON'S WEB. You can see more at the Hunt for Adventure website!

The Britannica.com website is featuring a two-week feature I wrote
about my favorite films of the year 1968 (originally written for
CINEMA RETRO Magazine). Britannica is listing each film with my
comments, one by one beginning with 10 all the way down to 1, on a
daily basis beginning Monday, October 22. It's in blog form, so
readers are invited to comment. There's a contest to win a signed
copy of A HARD DAY'S DEATH if you can guess my 1 pick (shouldn't be
that difficult for visitors to my website!) You can find the blog at the Britannica Blog Site-- just follow the link.

Watch this space for more exciting news in the works!

Attention Movie Fans! On the FIRST THURSDAY of every month is--live
and in person--the *SECOND* SEASON of DANN & RAYMOND'S MOVIE CLUB! Dann Gire (film critic of Chicago suburban newspaper THE DAILY HERALD) and I present evenings of cinema history, trivia, and mayhem. DANN & RAYMOND'S MOVIE CLUB will take place at the Schaumburg Township District Library (Central Branch). See the Appearances page for more info.

A re-run each month of the *FIRST* SEASON of DANN & RAYMOND'S MOVIE CLUB is at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library on the THIRD
THURSDAY of each month. See the Appearances page for more info.

I continue to play piano at the bar in Palm Court Restaurant on most
Monday and Tuesday nights, from 6pm to 10pm. See the Appearances page
for more details and dates when I won't be playing.

That's all for now!

Cheers,

Raymond