The cost of the crisis
Little heroes is the title of the new novel by Almudena Grandes, one of Spain's greatest writers. And little heroes it is about: the novel is actually a collection of interrelated stories about people like all of us, only these people all live in Madrid. Rich and poor, young and old, single or not - no one is to blame for the financial crisis, but everyone is dealing with its consequences. And sometimes it has very harrowing consequences.
In a delicate, beautifully composed novel, Grandes outlines how people fall and rise again, how they fight for themselves and for their fellow man, how - in short - small deeds and small heroes defy everyday life and make it a little better. A beautiful, moving book.
(Signature)
A dog lover's nightmare
We sometimes had to put our hands in front of our eyes for a moment - though that didn't help much, of course. Because isn't it the worst-case scenario for every dog lover: that your dear four-legged friend plunges into a ravine? You don't want to experience that, but Koos van Zomeren experienced it with his border terrier Stanley.
Alptraum is about the last walk with Stanley, who plunged into the abyss for a chamois. 'You put the key in the lock and you can't believe there's no dog coming out of his basket, if he wasn't already waiting on the mat, to welcome us barking and jumping and rolling around. Six days and you can't believe what happened happened.' Man oh man, a wonderful book, but to read with your throat squeezed together.
(Arbeiderspers)
Book of inspiration
Mirjam Noorduijn and Veerle Vanden Bosch bring in The Book of Books their canon of the finest children's literature. But not only that: with this book, the authors mainly wanted to make a 'groundbreaking, richly illustrated search guide' that shows which indispensable children's books the Netherlands and Flanders have produced, while referring to the international and adult book world, 'a book without end'. An unusual concept, and successful at that.
There are chapters on stories with talking animals, book adaptations, youth detectives or legendary characters, each with a list of ten examples. And of the many authors featured, you can read about a particular book, what else they have written, a striking quote, their sources of inspiration and what you might read next. A lot of attention is also paid to illustrators. The Book of Books is a unique, inspiring and beautifully designed book.
(Leopold)
Black struggle
She is one of our country's most interesting writers: Christine Otten. Empathy, social commitment and daring characterise her unique oeuvre. Her new novel We had love, we had guns fits in seamlessly. It is the cleverly composed story of black resistance fighter Robert F. Williams, who fought passionately and without concessions for the equality of America's black population. Otten puts the perspective with Mabel and John Williams, wife and son of Robert, and thus shows how the whole family made great sacrifices from unconditional love for this struggle and how it also made them all lonely in a way.
How incredibly much easier you have it in this world as a white person, you realise once again through this book. In January, the theatre production of the same name will premiere and tour the country.
(AtlasContact)
Outsiders
Who ''Children of the Rugged Land' has read, knows the broad outlines of writer Auke Hulst's background. Two days before his eighth birthday, his father died. His mother, 'a sprightly but also somewhat irresponsible woman', then increasingly led her own life, fleeing debt and responsibility. Auke, his older brother and younger sisters were left behind in a house in the Groningen countryside.
As an adolescent, he developed great social anxiety, he told us in an interview, which was largely due to how the outside world viewed them - the judgmental view. Few authors, then, can write so convincingly about young people standing outside society. He does so again in And I remember Titus Broederland, about the twin brothers Broederland, who live in a remote house in the forest. In the eyes of the outside world, the brothers have black souls, are 'devil's children'. Is this true, or is it precisely the outside world that poses the danger?
So familiar themes, but once again written down in a clever and intriguing way. Auke Hulst gets better with every book - and he was already so good.
(AmboAnthos)
Through the eyes of a horse
One of our other favourite writers has also done another trick: Jan van Mersbergen. Usually his characters are angular men, as silent as they are lonely, but in his new novel The rider he has ventured to have a horse tell the story of a girl and the very wrong man she has fallen for. Can that be believable? Yes, it can, at least with a writer like Jan van Mersbergen.
The surprising perspective, short sentences and peculiar observations produce funny and sometimes slightly alienating situations. The rider is a book you shouldn't waste too many words on - you just have to read it.
(Cossee)
Christmas stories
Another person who can handle the perspective of an animal is Jeanette Winterson. In the short story collection Christmas are her memories of Christmas, 12 nostalgic recipes and 12 Christmas stories have been compiled, including one with a dog and one with a donkey as narrator. Winterson wrote extensively about her unhappy childhood with her strict religious adoptive parents in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the book that made her world-famous overnight. But 'Mrs Winterson' and her husband loved Christmas, she recently told us in an interview. 'It was the only two weeks of the year when they were truly happy and the house was cosy. While writing my new book of Christmas stories, going back to those times, I felt compassion for them. In my creative work, I look for answers, for meaning, for healing. Perhaps Christmas so do still kind of reach out to them.'
In any case, it is an extraordinary collection and a beautiful, personal book by one of the most important English-language writers.
(AtlasContact)
Swinging Zadie
A book to take into Christmas is Swing Time by Zadie Smith. When I read her swinging novel White Teeth read, I was sold. What good, sharp and witty writing this woman can do. So it is always a happening when a new novel of hers is published.
Swing Time is about two friends from a poor North London neighbourhood, both of whom dream of a career as a dancer, but only one of whom has enough talent. The other becomes an assistant to a world-famous poster. Another swinging novel, then, both literally and figuratively, and a fat one at that. To be enjoyed leisurely during the dark days.
(Prometheus)
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