Backyard sale @ Pax/Oktober etc 2008

This year's other sale was at the Huitfeldt Street offices of Pax Forlag, and held by a group of small and smallish publishers. The following publishing houses collaborate on this sale: Oktober, Samlaget, Pax, Spartacus, Humanist, Imprintforlaget, Andresen & Butenschøn. Primarily Pax and Oktober though. They are all more or less to the left of the mainstream, and publish nonfiction books on various topics and fiction by authors who generally are not big stars ... as well as translated fiction from various countries.

This is an interesting sale as well; it was the second year I'd gone. Again, I'm not sure how many years they've been doing it. Their location is easy to find; it's a cross street to Henrik Ibsen Street a few blocks up from June 7th Square (on which the statue of King Haakon 7 gazes out to sea; easy to spot). Across the street from the Palace Gardens, quite far down Huitfeldt Street and on the right hand side of the street. I'd recommend the sale for anyone who's interested in the types of books they publish. If you're looking for easily accessible fiction, for instance, this may not be the place for you. ;-)

As I said I was there last year as well ... and I recognized a lot of titles from last year's sale. And last year I did buy quite a few books, so I wasn't entirely thrilled to see the same titles there again. At Tronsmo the variety was better and the selection was noticeably different from last year's. So for my personal taste this wasn't too impressive, but from an objective POV there was a good selection of books; I'd think most readers could find something there. Nonfiction on many topics, biographies, new fiction titles, classics and children's books. The price range was similar to Tronsmo's; generally speaking slightly higher here, though.

They obviously have good storage facilities, though, and keep whatever overstock doesn't sell for next year's sale ... kudos to them for not throwing it out, definitely, but also something a potential shopper should be aware of.

KAS bought more books at this sale than I did, I think. :-o But I already had a pretty heavy bag to carry; it was dragging down my urge to shop ...

KAS browsing the shelves:

My haul, such as it was:

The floral arrangements on June 7th Square, which we went past twice, were absolutely beautiful. We were impressed by how colorful and lush the flower beds looked even now, when fall is definitely here.