Non-Fiction
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Harry Mulisch - The Criminal Case 40-61: A Report
In 1961, Harry Mulisch went to Jerusalem to report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the captured Nazi war criminal. Afterwards he published The Criminal Case 40-61, a disturbing personal essay about the Nazi mass murder of European Jews. Mulisch... >>>> read more
Jona Oberski - Childhood
The facts alone would be enough to make Childhood an extraordinary and important book, but Jona Oberski presents them in such a way that he creates a deeply affecting literary work. It describes the experiences of a Jewish boy between... >>>> read more
Boudewijn Bakker - Landscape and World View. From Van Eyck to Rembrandt
Art critics like to emphasize the modern and realist character of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape paintings, but Boudewijn Bakker explicitly distances himself from that interpretation. He points to a long tradition of landscape as a subject in Dutch painting that stretches... >>>> read more
Hans Ibelings - European Architecture since 1890
Towards the end of the nineteenth century European cities began to grow at an explosive rate, creating huge demand for public buildings. New city dwellers attracted by industry and commerce needed houses, schools, hospitals and libraries. Architects were no longer... >>>> read more
Luuk van Middelaar - The Passage to Europe. History of a beginning
Luuk van Middelaar makes a highly original connection between the world of European power politics since 1500 and the Brussels institutions of today. International events have repeatedly forced Europe to find a new role for itself on the world stage:... >>>> read more
Frank Westerman - Brother Mendel’s Perfect Horse
Frank Westerman explores the great human tragedies of the twentieth century through the story of a horse, the Lipizzaner, in an astonishing quest through the pure bloodlines of four generations of Viennese ‘school stallions’ to discover what they meant to... >>>> read more
Dick Swaab - We Are Our Brains. From the womb to Alzheimer’s
It has long been assumed in the West that upbringing determines who a child will become. The negative side to this conviction is that everything that can go wrong in a person’s life can be blamed on the parents and,... >>>> read more
Rik Smits - The Puzzle of Left-Handedness. How hand-preference colours the world
Throughout history left-handedness has been associated with clumsiness, maladies of all kinds and unpleasant character traits. All these negative connotations have meant that left-handed people were subjected to harsh treatment, even persecution. Today left-handedness no longer bears a stigma –... >>>> read more
Iki Freud - Electra. The Drama of the Mother-Daughter Relationship
In her practice as a psychotherapist Iki Freud found herself dealing with women who encountered problems after their children were born. Some were suffering from serious depression, with feelings of guilt at being unable to love their babies as they... >>>> read more
Ap Dijksterhuis - The Smart Unconscious. Thinking by feel
We make important decisions based on a conscious appraisal - or so we think. Whether that is truly the case we do not know. Psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis began contemplating the matter after taking just five minutes to decide on the... >>>> read more