Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.12.2016, Qupperneq 34

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34 SHOPPING
An Antiquarian
Book Lover's
Guide To
Reykjavík
Words ELI PETZOLD
Photo ART BICNICK
The tale of Reykjavík’s anti-
quarian book trade is one of de-
cline. In 1967, Reykjavík boast-
ed eleven secondhand book
stores—roughly one shop for
every 7,000 residents of the bur-
geoning city. After half a centu-
ry, even as the city’s population
has doubled, only two proper
used book shops remain, leav-
ing one store for every 60,000
Reykvíkingar. Old books, nev-
ertheless, remain, indifferent
to the fluctuations of time; here
are a handful of spots where you
can hunt them down.
Bókin (“The Book”), founded in
1964, is indubitably the biblio-
philic mecca of Reykjavík. With
just the right balance of clutter
and order, it’s easy to lose hours
rifling through dusty shelves
and precarious towers of books
stacked on the floor. Although a
few shelves by the entrance con-
tain a hodgepodge of literature
in English, most of the stock is
in Icelandic—a point of pride for
the booksellers who run the
shop: ask for translations of Ice-
landic authors and you’ll be di-
rected elsewhere. If you’re eager
to learn Icelandic, however,
there’s no shortage of old gram-
mars and dictionaries scattered
throughout, and the staff, cur-
mudgeonly though they seem,
will gladly entertain your broken
Icelandic and help get you start-
ed on the Icelandic canon. The
shop devotes considerable space
to medieval Icelandic literature:
critical editions of Sagas in their
original, archaic orthography sit
beside versions updated into fa-
miliar modern spellings in the
placid back corner of the shop.
Bókakjallarinn (“The Book
Cellar”), tucked away in an al-
leyway off Laugavegur, occupies
t h e f o r m e r w o r k s h o p o f
Bókamiðstöðin, a defunct pub-
lisher and press that printed
comics, children’s books, cross-
words, and porn. Bókamiðstöðin
stopped printing books in 1990,
but the space reopened as a sec-
ondhand book shop in 2010. The
old printing machinery now
slumbers in the back of the shop,
but the old materials—vintage
smut included—remain for sale
in the cozy basement, alongside
a neat, tightly shelved collection
of Icelandic literature.
At Kolaportið, Reykjavík’s week-
end flea market, a handful of
regular vendors peddle second-
hand books from stalls encircled
by bookshelves which simulta-
neously maximize shelf space
and barricade against the
fish-pungent chaos of the mar-
ket. The combined stock of the
market’s booksellers, and the
breadth of subject matter, could
constitute a cohesive, compre-
hensive bookshop in its own
right: oversaturated, illustrated
kids’ classics; new mystery in
well-worn paperback; Sagas
bound in stately sets. In addition
to these reliable staples, the ven-
dors at Kolaportið often have
unique or rare treasures—a
Greenlandic phrasebook, a com-
pilation of Faroese folk songs, an
early nineteenth century edition
of Ha l lgrímur Pét ursson’s
Passíusálmar—silently bearing
witness to the lives and adven-
tures of strangers.
Thrift stores, such as Góði
hirðirinn in Skeifan or Salva-
tion Army’s Hertex in Vestur-
bær, devote several shelves to
used books. Entirely dependent
on donations, the stock at these
shops can be unpredictable, un-
organized, and underwhelming;
patience and a good eye, howev-
er, are rewarded with the occa-
sional gem. Góði hirðirinn gen-
erally has a small selection of
foreign titles, priced at 100 ISK
apiece—a negligible sum next to
the cost of shipping to Iceland.
Throughout the University of
Iceland campus and in the Na-
tional Library, professors and
students leave unwanted books
on semi-official free book ta-
bles. Often, the books are more
interesting for their peculiarity
or specificity than for any in-
trinsic aspect: a university-pub-
lished pamphlet on an other-
wise unstudied seventeenth
century poet; municipal records
from mid-century Borgarnes;
an Italian study of Old English
metrics. Utility is dubious; nov-
elty abounds.