Sunday Post - 01.09.1940, Side 2

2
SUNDAY POST
Round Reykjavik’s Bookshops.
When British troops landed in Iceland j
two of the first commodities to boom
were beer and books. When after a fort-
night the entire supply of beer had been
sold, Iceland’s rigid licensing laws forbade
the importation of fresh supplies from
England. The booksellers were more for-
tunate. At least five shops in Reykjavik
receive supplies of books ,,magazines'1 and
newspapers from England two or three
times a week. Periodicals of course are
unavoidably late in arriving — ten days
is a good average — but the range and
variety is excellent and although the de-
mand is still greater than the supply it is
generally possible to obtain most of the
leading dailies in addition to “Picture
Post”, “War Illustrated” and other popu-
lar magazines.
In some directions the selection is even
wider than in England. How many Eng-
lish newsagents for example can offer the
“Psychic News” or “Light” or “The New
Times and Ethiopian News”? Where in
England is there so large a choice of books
on chess? For the Icelander in the long
winter evenings has two great standbys,
chess and spiritualism. As long ago as
1896 a learned Manchester man travelling
in Iceland put on record the great interest
in psychic phenomena and noted that “re-
markable results are said to have been ob-
tained”. Since then it is understood even
more remarkable results have been ob-
tained, while Icelandic chess-players have
already badly worsted more than one
member of H. M. Forces.
The „New Times and Ethiopian” News
however is not so easily explained. Whe
this paper (edited by Sylvia Pankhurst
the veteran Suffragette) and virtually
unknown in England should have so wide
an appeal here, remains a mystery. Can
it be that the case of the Negus against
the man he once unhappily referred to in
English as ,,my enema the Douche” arouses
more interest here than in England?
The best selections of British books have
to be found at Snsebjorn Jonssons English
Bookshop next door to the Hotel Island,
and at Eymundsen opposite the Post-
office. Snaebjorn Jonsson is one of Ice-
lands leading English Scholars and has a
son in the R. A. F. He is the author of an
Icelandic Grammar in English which cer-
tain; optimists have purchased, though
few get further than the chapter on the
alphabet, which reminds among other
things that “the letter G. has five main
sounds in Icelandic” Mr Jonsson is sel-
dom there himself but leaves the shop in
charge of one or other of two identical
twin girls.
Besides a full stock of Penguins there is
a large number of Oxford Classics, thrill-
ers, novels and books on history politics
and travel and — of course — spiritalism
and chess. There is also a book by a “well
known” British Pyramidist by the name of
Rutherford which proves coneusively from
measurements macfe on the Great Pyramid
in Egypt that Iceland will save the World
in 1994 (It is expected that we will all
get 48 hours leave in celebration of this
event).
Just across the road is another bookshop
which shows another interesting sidelight
on Icelandic life. Tucked away in a corner
is a large number of manuals on gliding
all, significantly, in German, Gliding as a
sport has besoee vemy popular in Iceland
in recent years largely under the
guidance of German instructors who more
than probably kept one eye on their pupils
while the other sought out possible landing
(Continued on page 7.)