Catalogues
Mishka
The story of how this book came to be is a tale in itself. Over fifteen years ago, Van de Vendel met a family of Afghan refugees. One of the children, Anoush, who was 17 at the time, told him about his dangerous journey to the Netherlands, and the two of them wrote a book about it together.
The Boy Who Loved the World
It sounds like the most impossible mission ever: Breath, a spirit who resembles an eleven or twelve-year-old boy, has to ensure that his future mother and father fall in love. Otherwise he will never exist for real.
Upstream
Noor’s mum and dad are fanatical about the environment. That means: no planes, eating vegetarian food, staging playful protest activities and having planning meetings in the living room. This way of life has always been completely natural to Noor. But now that she’s expected to make a fool of herself by dressing up in a homemade polar-bear costume at the next demonstration and no one has even asked her if she actually wants to do it, she decides that enough is enough.
Mushroom & Co
‘You owe the fact that you’re reading this book to fungi. Not because this book wouldn’t be about anything otherwise, but because human beings would never have existed.’ Right from the very first chapter, the biologist Geert-Jan Roebers makes it clear that toadstools and mushrooms aren’t just any old subject. This largely unseen fungal kingdom plays a crucial role in our existence.
The Rescuer
In Deen’s sublime third Wadden Sea thriller, a mystery unfolds against a spectacular backdrop. The psychological depth and literary brilliance of Deen’s works are reminiscent of the great Scandinavian authors in the genre. longside the murder case – below the surface of the water, if you will – he constructs a riveting psychological drama.
In the Eye
Relationships are a careful balancing act: what should you say and what is best kept to yourself? Should you share everything with your partner or is it acceptable to keep some things secret? That is the key question in acclaimed author Marijke Schermer’s riveting fourth novel.
Hard Skin
Sarlag is a 26-year-old woman working in the freezer section of a grocery store somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands. She seems completely ordinary. With a cool, detached gaze, she observes her surroundings and thinks about yaks, those loyal animals with their white fur that live on the steppes of Mongolia, where she grew up.
Oxhead
In this superbly written debut, we meet a butcher who lives for his craft – he wants to provide the best meat from animals who have had a good life and are slaughtered as humanely as possible. After finishing butchery college, he will be taking over his parents’ business. He has a brilliant future ahead of him.
Alma's Daughters - Five Lives in the Shadowsd
In this innovative multi-biography, Jutta Chorus follows a fascinating female family line over the course of the past century and a half. The book begins in the nineteenth century with matriarch Alma and then follows the lives of Alma’s daughter Elly, her granddaughters Sylvia and Elly, and her great-granddaughter Lili. A writer, an agricultural scientist, a journalist, a photographer and a filmmaker. Had they been men, the biographer argues, they would have displayed their talents with more bravado and most likely gone down in history.
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Uprising — The Populist Revolt and Battle for the Soul of the West
In recent years the far-right’s growing mainstream acceptance has come to feel unstoppable. On a platform of identity, family, nationalism and anti-immigration, populist parties have seen electoral wins throughout the West. Underlying their valorisation of what is ‘natural’ and ‘realistic’, however, is a broader counterrevolutionary movement against the left-liberal globalist elite and what is perceived as the undermining of Western identity.
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When Humans Stray — Seven Animals Bite Back
For 400 years, European seafarers attempted to sail over the top of the globe for a shorter trading route. The famous polar explorer William Barentsz, who lent his name to the Barents Sea, died a hero, after becoming stranded in Novaya Zemlya in northern Russia. Today, however, he would have been able to complete his route in the summer.
Listening Practice
Initially, the emancipating power of internet technology was warmly embraced: the marginalised could finally influence political debate, new voices could shake up the dominant world order. But constant scrolling has led to a ‘dizzying swirl of current events’, overstimulation leads to mental shut down. Can we learn to listen again?