Every now and then we receive reports about the surprising places that Osprey books seem to turn up in. A few years ago a cool customer got in touch to let us know that she had taken a bunch of Osprey books to work with her. To a research station in Antarctica. And, if you are a fan of the Channel 4 TV show Skins, you might have spotted Freddie reading an Osprey book in one of the final episodes of the season. An Osprey book has even appeared in a music video!

I managed to get myself stranded for a week in Zimbabwe by the recent volcano (now that is a cast iron excuse for elongating a holiday, if I have ever seen one) - and realized that I had very nearly finished all of my holiday reading material. So I went off hunting for a couple of books to tide me over, and stumbled into a really cool, quirky second hand bookshop in Zimbabwe's capital - Harare.

A quick rummage round the store produced a copy of the Robert Harris novel Archangel, and as I was approaching the owner of the shop to buy the book I suddenly spotted the military history section of the store, a small shelf that was crowned by none other than a quartet of Osprey Elites! My better half sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes as I was consumed by a burst of excitement, scrabbling round in my backpack for my camera 'so I can get a photo of this for the blog - no-one is going to believe this!'

So without further ado - here is a picture of some Ospreys, in a bookshop in Zimbabwe!

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Ok, so they are very old versions of some of our Elite books - but I was still pretty chuffed! Although the person in the bookshop didn't really share the same sense of enthusiasm when I revealed that I worked for Osprey.

Anyway - this gave me a bit of an idea, drop me an email with the strangest / most exciting / oddest place that you have seen an Osprey book. The best example will be picked out and the winner will get to choose any Osprey book of their choice (providing it is in stock). Extra prizes will also be allocated if photographic evidence is included in the email.

I will then put the winner's examples up on the blog for the world to see.


Ps. On a related note I was rather pleased with my holiday reading choices, in particular The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - an awesome read which I struggled to put down and just blasted through. Also thoroughly enjoyed American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and the quasi-historical fiction crime novel by Tom Rob Smith called The Secret Speech (an almost perfect airport novel). Archangel I didn't enjoy as much as Fatherland, also by Harris, but that might be because I was reading it during a 6 hour layover on my way home...