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If you find yourself in Oslo and are thinking about looking for antiquarian books, we can point you in the right directions. Norway isn't home to the largest remaining selection of antiquarian bookstores in Scandinavia (shops in Denmark and Sweden seem to have fared better than others), but there are still quite a few in which visitors can spend many hours scanning shelves and boxes.

Always in these days when the antiquarian book fairs in Boston, Chelsea, Sydney, Toronto or in California, New York, Paris, Milan and London open their doors to visitors I remember the day when I lost my books. Have you ever made this experience? Have you ever attended an antiquarian book fair without your books? Empty shelves for sale? I'm a retired antiquarian bookseller of over 40 years standing. I think I have seen most of what this curious profession has to offer: the interesting and the boring, the delightful and the dreadful, the amusing and the saddening. Most of all, I have seen a lot of strange and curious events, and I am about to relate one of the most curious here.

The "Meister der Spielkarten", or "The Master of the Playing Cards" is known only through the 106 engravings that have been attributed to him, including the set of playing cards that he is named for. The term "master" is reserved for someone who has completed an apprenticeship and ran his own workshop, teaching apprentices. His presumed students are also unknown but have similar names, such as "The Master of the Nuremberg Passion", "The Master of 1446", and "The Master of the Banderoles".

The International Rare Book & Autograph Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris, now in its 28th year, is one of the most prestigious fairs in the world, attracting nearly 200 exhibitors and over 20.000 visitors who enjoy the opportunity to browse, buy and admire more than 100.000 historical documents, rare books, manuscripts, autographs, prints and ephemera from all centuries. In 2016, this international high-class event becomes even greater as the French antiquarian booksellers will join in ILAB's celebrations on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day by granting FREE ENTRY TO THE FAIR ON SATURDAY 23 April.

Writer, broadcaster and bibliophile Nigel Beale met Jan and Crispin Elsted in their home in British Columbia. The Elsted's established Barbarian Press in 1977 in Kent, England. With three hand presses and many cases of type, the couple returned home to Canada in 1978 to set up shop in Mission about 50 miles east of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley.

This new volume of the Publishing Pathways series examines the relationship between the business of print and the practice of art and design across five centuries. It explores the role played by the book trade in the diffusion of artistic and architectural theory, fashion, and practice, and traces the impact of advances in the techniques of binding, color printing, and illustration on the appearance of books. Among the topics discussed are the printed sources for decorative motifs in sixteenth-century churches, the publication history of the works of Andrea Palladio, and the evolution of drawing manuals in seventeenth-century England. Other subjects include the library formed by the architect Sir John Soane, developments in nineteenth-century art publishing, and the role of printed catalogues in documenting the acquisitions made by English collectors of paintings, sculpture, and antiquities.