The 2025 general meeting of the Public Book Club, Almenna bokafelagid, AB, was held on 17 May. Jonas Sigurgeirsson, AB Executive Director, presented the 2024 accounts which showed the best-ever performance, not least because of sales to foreign tourists. Other shareholders are Kjartan Gunnarsson, Baldur Gudlaugsson, and Armann Thorvaldsson. AB celebrates its 7oth anniversary this year. It was founded on 17 June 1955 at the initiative of Bjarni Benediktsson, then Minister of Education and Vice-Chairman of the Independence Party, and the poets Gunnar Gunnarsson, Tomas Gudmundsson, Gudmundur G. Hagalin, and Kristmann Gudmundsson. The objective of AB was to present an alternative to the communist publishing house, Mal og menning, generously supported by Kremlin.
In recent years, AB has published three novels by Ayn Rand, We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, books by Hannes H. Gissurarson, now Professor Emeritus, on several issues, such as the Icelandic Communist Movement and the Impeachment Trial of former Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde, books by Matt Ridley and Johan Norberg on the grounds for optimism about economic development, and reprints of anti-communist books of the Cold War, including Essays on Communism by Bertrand Russell, Out of the Night by Jan Valtin (Richard Krebs), El campesino by Valentín González, Baltic Eclipse by Aants Oras, and I Chose Freedom by Victor Kravchenko.
According to tradition, the shareholders held a dinner after the meeting. From left: Thórdís Edwald, Baldur Gudlaugsson, Sigrídur Snævarr, Ármann Thorvaldsson, Hannes H. Gissurarson, Jónas Sigurgeirsson, Karítas Kvaran, Kjartan Gunnarsson, and Rosa Gudbjartsdóttir.
