Books

Read this year:

Alexander McCall Smith, De filosofieclub van Isabel Dalhousie [The Sunday Philosophy Club]. A bit of a flimsy story about Isabel Dalhousie, a philosopher, who sees someone fall down from the balcony in a theatre and then starts being way too nosy for her own good. This is why we have police. The nice thing about the book was that it was set in Edinburgh, mainly in Bruntsfield and Morningside, so it was easier to bring the story to life.

Marten Toonder, De toornviolen. A Bommel classic. Bommel wants to enter a flower contest, but his violets are nothing compared to the botanical masterpieces of his neighbour marquis de Cantecler. Until he finds an invention that Kwetal had left lying around. Bommel should know better than to use Kwetal’s inventions...

Marten Toonder, De kwade inblazingen. More Bommel adventures, this time with a garden shed that becomes a portal to another dimension (again because Kwetal can’t keep an eye on his things). It’s a nice dimension, until Super and Hieper manage to piss off the little creatures that live there and they decide to enter our dimension. Oops.

Marten Toonder, De loodhervormer. Not Kwetal this time, but a mysterious traveller that has a method of turning lead into gold. Not only does this mess up your plumbing, it also wreaks havoc for your economy once Bommel and everyone else start transforming lead.

Mark Abley, Spoken here: travels among threatened languages. A very good popular science book about endangered languages. At times it is a freak show of languages, with the all-incorporating verbs in Inuit, or the verbs in Boro with highly specific meanings (‘to fall into a well unknowingly’, ‘to love for the last time’), but it also paints a decent picture of all that threatens the world’s linguistic diversity. Too bad he’s not quite exact on his Faroese stuff.

Hans Schoots, Van Amerongen, letterknecht. A biography of Martin van Amerongen, a leading Dutch journalist and former editor of such magazines as Vrij Nederland and De Groene Amsterdammer. Nice and short, and with plenty of room for Van Amerongen’s cynicism.

Now reading:

Sybe Izaak Rispens, Einstein in Nederland: een intellectuele biografie. Well, not quite reading yet but it’s the next one on the list. A biography of Albert Einstein with special reference to his link to the Netherlands. Apparently his links to the Dutch scientific world were crucial in bringing the ideas of this German scientist to the English-speaking world during World War I.

On the still to read pile:

Armand Leroi, Mutanten. A very thick book about the human body and everything that can go wrong with it. Includes pictures of innocent things like Siamese twins and more obscure mutations of the human body. Rather off-putting.

Arthur Japin, De grote wereld. This year’s Book Week gift. I have no idea what this is about, although it seems to be a story written from a kid’s perspective. The kids on the cover are dressed a lot older than they are and have ugly teeth.

Angst overwint alles: de beste verhalen uit het nieuwe Europa. A selection of short stories and novellas from Eastern Europe. I started the first story at some point, by Marek Hłasko, but it couldn’t really catch me so I put the book aside again. Arnon Grunberg (whose own books are actually very good) should have picked another story to start this with.