Here I keep track of some of the books that I’ve read. It’s only a selection (I read a lot more books for work); it’s nice to keep track. I like to read book in their original languages where possible: French, German, Dutch, English and I even read a book in Bulgarian. See also books about technology or management, and my favorite books.
I’m an engineer, and enjoy science fiction novels. Some of my favorite authors are Vernor Vinge, Terry Pratchett and LE Modesitt Jr. No overview of my reading habits would be complete without mentioning The Economist — I love that magazine.
Books below are in order of date read; this overview starts with October 2002.
Submitted by Guus on Sat, 04/07/2012 - 10:29pm
My experience with coming of age books has been rather mixed. I disliked A Catcher in the Rye and especially Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I borrowed this book from my parents because years ago I enjoyed another Vestdijk book a great deal. And indeed, Vestdijk managed to write a book about a 15 year boy that is touching, funny, and interesting.
Submitted by Guus on Wed, 04/04/2012 - 7:20am
In my parent’s house the to-be-returned library books were always on a specific shelf. Right above that were my parents’ books, and “De Tweeling” always stood out. The book was published in 1990 so it clearly wasn’t there throughout my whole childhood but in my memory the book was always there. It didn’t appeal to me then to read it, but two years ago I bought a secondhand copy online.
This is a wonderful novel, and I greatly enjoyed it. It combines a traditional World War II story in the Netherlands with that of a woman growing up in Nazi Germany, and the book beautifully intertwines the life stories of the twins. The reader gets drawn into the story, and is intellectually curious to see how the author will wrap up the story, and emotionally curious to see how the women’s lives will turn out.
Some parts of the book read like a boy’s book about World War II, vaguely resembling Jan Terlouw’s stories about the War in the Netherlands and the hunger winter, others parts are more about family relations and coming of age in difficult circumstances.
The book is also available in an English translation. Recommended.
Submitted by Guus on Sat, 03/17/2012 - 6:38pm
Petrus Stuyvesant was the last Director-General of Nieuw Amsterdam, and while the name is famous, I knew relatively little about it.
The book is written Jaap Jacobs, a well known New Netherland researcher and author. Earlier I read ‘A history of New Netherland’ by the same author.
In Russell Shorto’s ‘Island at the Center of the World’ Adriaen van der Donck is the main character — and not exactly a friend of Stuyvesant. It was interesting to know read a book from the other perspective. Jacobs did a nice job of providing more insight in the life of Stuyvesant, although the book remains a history book, and provides relatively little insight in the character of the man. The book always remains objective and neutral — I wouldn’t have minded if Jacobs provided a little more ‘color’ to the main character.
I believe I bought this book while visiting the Netherlands last year. I read it during two long nights, while waiting for Nora to fall asleep when she was almost four weeks old.
It was fascinating to read about the first three Kings of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During most of the 20th century, the Queens have had largely ceremonial roles, but in the 19th century there was a real power struggle between the monarchs and parliament. Ultimately, parliament won and the Netherlands became a constitution monarchy, but the three King Williams fought a hard political battle.
This was interesting book, if a little gossipy. I didn’t know much at all about this period in Dutch history; the 19th century was rather boring and generally brought decline compared to the 17th century, so it is not an important part of school curriculums.
Reading the book makes you appreciate why people across Europe revolted against royal rules. There is an incredible amount of scheming and intriguing going on. The descriptions of the private lives of the monarchs were less interesting but it was fascinating to see the politics around and in royal families worked.
This book was a present by Harm and Marijke. I read it during the time that we were moving from Durham back to DC.
This book is a reprint of the original manuscript of the commander of the ship Batavia, which perished on the cliffs before Australia in 1629. It is a project by the Linschoten-Vereeniging, a society that aims to republish original Dutch-language manuscripts related to (ocean) travel.
It was an interesting book to read. The bloody story of the Batavia was mostly new for me. The book consists of two parts: a thorough introduction and summary of the affair, as well as the transcription of the commander of the ship, Francisco Pelsaert. The latter is kept in the original 17th century Dutch, which took a while to get used to but is ultimately quite readable. The summary in the beginning is very helpful, since the manuscript and other documents are not placed chronologically.
The story of the Batavia is quite sad, and the manuscript is explicit in the bloodiness of the whole business.
Harm and Marijke gave me this book when I visited the Netherlands in 2010.
Het Heelal is the Dutch edition of Hawking’s classic A Brief History of Time. I brought this copy from Holland a few weeks ago. It was on my parent’s attic in our boxes so I’m sure it’s my copy, but I don’t remember how I got it.
It’s not the first time I read this book, and last winter I read several articles by Hawkings, but it’s always a great read. The idea of a time-space continuum is appealing, but difficult to understand, I’ll admit.
It was interesting to read the book in Dutch (I usually try to read books in their original English, but hey, I had it on my bookshelves). The translator had Hawkings use Dam Square in Amsterdam as a reference point. Good translations though.
Submitted by Guus on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 10:05pm
Twee Vrouwen (Twice a Woman) is a book by Dutch author Harry Mulish, who recently passed away. It had been a while since I read a book in Dutch. It’s so much easier than reading in French! Harry Mulish is one of my favorite Dutch authors, but there are many books of him that I haven’t read.
My grandmother gave us a copy when I visited the Netherlands a few weeks ago. The book is from 1975 but it was republished in 2008 for the promotional Nederland Leest event.
I greatly enjoyed the book; it’s a straight forward story but with many different layers and a lot of symbolism.
De Asielzoeker is a beautiful but depressing book about a man's journey through life, and the role that his dying wife has played in it.
The book won the Dutch AKO literatuurprijs in 2004 and it's easy to see why -- it's beautifully written with characters that are well thought out and executed.
The downside was the depressing story line -- it's just so sad and depressing! The main character feels that life consists of illusions and self deception, and his way of approaching life is therefore very cold and, again, depressing.
A beautiful read, over all. This book was a present by Jessica.
This book was so much better than “Geschiedenis van de VOC” which I read a few months ago.
Gouden Handel was exactly what I was looking for; interesting stories, anecdotes and general information about the VOC. It’s nicely written, the author obviously knows his stuff and it’s a facinating history of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie.
The details on what goods exactly the VOC traded are very interesting — over time the collected a huge amount of information on what you usage each product had in each of their markets (from Europe, Africa, Middle East through the various countries in the Far East). The author makes a convincing case that this product knowledge helps explain the commercial success of the VOC.
When we visited the Amsterdam Historical Museum last year I bought De Geschiedenis van de VOC. This book by Femme Gaastra deals with history of the VOC, the Dutch East India Company.
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I was quoted in The Economist and my site was posted on Slashdot. I speak English and Dutch fluently, and pretty decent German, French and Bulgarian. I founded Dutch in America.com which has 2,700 fans on Facebook.
