Well, that’s it. I’m not buying any more books from Ark.
Every two years there is a big semi-co-ordinated book sale in Norway called “Mammutsalget” (the mammoth sale – easy innit?), most of the books being 50-70% off the normal retail price. This year the official dates were 10-22 March. And every year the best part of the sale is the week after, where all the shops do 30-70% off the sale price again, making the books very cheap indeed. Of course, by this time, the established goodies are gone, but then, one may not always agree with everyone else on what “the goodies” are. So today after work I went trawling the bookshops of Oslo. I actually made it to Tanum on Karl Johan yesterday, and they had 30% off, and I made off with:
Ludwig Wittgenstein “Filosofiske undersøkelser” (Philosophische Untersuchungen)
André Bjerke “Versekunsten, rytme og rim”
Charles Baudelaire “Kunsten og det moderne liv” (contains a selection of Baudelaires art criticism and essays)
and all for less than 200 kroner. Yay me. So today I started at Ark up by Sollis Plass. What? No sale? All Mammut books tidied away? More’s the pity. So I walked down to Norli, and (whahay!) they were doing 50% off. So there I was, paying (very little) for
Georg Johannesen “Litteraturens norske nullpunkt” (essays on contemporary Norwegian non-fiction)
Olav H. Hauge “Dikt i umsetjing” (selected poetry translated by Hauge, from such poets as Hölderlin and Celan)
Charles Baudelaire “Det vondes blomar” (Les Fleur du Mal)
That should keep me busy for a while. However, not done with Ark yet. I also tried the Egertorvet branch. Surely they must realise that the hunt through the cheap remains is the main delight of the sale? No, they don’t. Or, if they do, they don’t care. All sale books tidied away.
So, while everyone else is boycotting Iraq, the United States, Shell, France, McDonald’s, Nike and heaven knows what else, I am going to boycott Ark. That’s how seriously I take my book buying.
Voice on the stereo: Chrissy Hynde (well, The Pretenders) – My City Was Gone (I started humming Don’t Get Me Wrong earlier and wanted to hear it. Turns out I don’t actually have it on CD, which seems frightfully remiss of me and which will have to be remedied. In the meantime, this isn’t bad.)