Ghent and Amsterdam, and What I Read
Ghent. Photo by Chris Foster
We got back on Monday from a packed week in Ghent and Amsterdam. Despite the chilly, showery weather and a slightly disappointing Airbnb experience in Ghent, it was a great trip overall. Our charming little B&B apartment in Broek in Waterland, a 20-minute bus ride from Amsterdam, more than made up for the somewhat lackluster accommodation in Belgium and was a perfect base for exploring the area. With our three-day, all-inclusive regional travel passes we were free to hop on as many trams and buses as we wanted.
On Saturday we crammed in lots of Amsterdam’s main attractions: the Rijksmuseum, the Begijnhof cloisters, the Botanical Gardens and the Anne Frank House, interspersed with window shopping, a rainy picnic lunch and an Indonesian takeaway dinner eaten by a canal. I also got to visit a more off-the-beaten-track attraction I’d spotted in our guide book: De Poezenboot or “The Cat Boat,” a home for strays moored on the Singel canal. Alas, the resident kitties were not as friendly as many we met on the rest of the trip, but it was still fun.
The highlight of our Amsterdam stay was the Van Gogh Museum on Sunday morning. It was crowded – everything was; though Ghent was very quiet, Amsterdam doesn’t seem to be into its off season yet, if it even has one – but we took our time and saw every single painting, many of which I’d never come across in reproductions. The galleries are organized in chronological order, so you get to trace Van Gogh’s style and state of mind over the years. Superb.
Marken. Photo by Chris Foster
At this point we were just about overwhelmed by the big city atmosphere, so we spent much of the next day and a half in the outlying Dutch towns of Marken and Edam. Flat fields and dykes, cows, cobbled streets and bicycles everywhere – it’s what you’d expect of Holland’s countryside, apart from a surprising dearth of windmills.
Bookish highlights:
- This Ghent University library – I’m presuming it held Special Collections/rare books:
- The American Book Center in Amsterdam:
Photo by Chris Foster
What I read:
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov: A comic novel about a Russian professor on an American college campus. While there are indeed shades of Lucky Jim – I certainly laughed out loud at Timofey Pnin’s verbal gaffes and slapstick falls – there’s more going on here. In this episodic narrative spanning 1950–4, Pnin is a figure of fun but also of pathos: from having all his teeth out and entertaining the son his ex-wife had by another man to failing to find and keep a home of his own, he deserves the phrase Nabokov originally thought to use as a title, “My Poor Pnin”. 
Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker: Bosker gave herself a year and a half to learn everything about wine in hopes of passing the Court of Master Sommeliers exam. Along the way she worked in various New York City restaurants, joined blind tasting clubs and attended an olfactory conference. The challenge included educating her palate, absorbing tons of trivia about growers and production methods, and learning accepted standards for sommelier service. The resulting book is a delightful blend of science, memoir and encounters with people who are deadly serious about wine.
You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann: And I thought my Airbnb experience was a nightmare? This is a horror novella about a writing retreat gone bad. The narrator is a screenplay writer who’s overdue delivering the sequel to Besties. As he argues with his partner, tries to take care of his daughter and produces fragments of the screenplay, the haunted house in the mountains starts to close in on him. I’ve loved Kehlmann’s work before (especially F), but he couldn’t convince me of the narrator’s state of mind or the peril. I actually found the book unintentionally humorous. 
The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker: A Dutch translator and Emily Dickinson scholar has fled a mistake in her personal life and settled in rural Wales at the foot of Snowdon. “She had left everything behind, everything except the poems. They would have to see her through. She forgot to eat.” On her farmstead is a dwindling flock of geese and, later on, a young man surveying for a new footpath. Amidst her quiet, secret-filled days we also learn of her husband’s attempts to find her back in Amsterdam. Bakker’s writing is subtle and lovely, yet the story never quite took off for me. 
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach: If you liked Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Miniaturist, you may also enjoy this atmospheric, art-inspired novel set in the 1630s. (Originally from 1999, it’s recently been adapted into a film.) Sophia, married off to an old merchant, falls in love with Jan van Loos, the painter who comes to do their portrait. If Sophia and Jan are ever to be together, they’ll have to scrape together enough money to plot an elaborate escape. I thought this was rather soap opera-ish most of the way through, though I was satisfied with how things turned out in the end.
Plus other books I had on the go (lots of short works and literature in translation):
Dangling Man by Saul Bellow- Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen
- The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret
- Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love and Manic Depression by David Leite
- The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
- Honeydew: Stories by Edith Pearlman
- A Girl Walks into a Book: What the Brontës Taught Me about Life, Love, and Women’s Work by Miranda Pennington
Extremely cheap souvenirs of Amsterdam to add to my collections: a badge, a pressed coin, and a Van Gogh bookmark.
What have you been reading recently?
Do you find that books read ‘on location’ never quite live up to your expectations?
Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of 2017
Back in December I previewed some of the books set to be released in 2017 that I was most excited about. Out of those 30 titles, here’s how I fared:
- Read: 16 [Disappointments: 2]
- Currently reading: 1
- Abandoned partway through: 2
- Lost interest in: 4
- Haven’t managed to find yet: 2
- Languishing on my Kindle; I still have vague intentions to read: 5
The latter half of the year promises plenty of big-name releases, such as long-awaited novels from Nicole Krauss and Jennifer Egan and a memoir by Maggie O’Farrell. Here are 24 books that happen to be on my radar for the coming months; this is by no means a full picture.
The descriptions below are adapted from the publisher blurbs on Goodreads, NetGalley or Amazon. Some of these books I already have access to in print or galley form; others I’ll be looking to get hold of. (In chronological order, generally by first publication date.)
July
How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus [July 13, Harvill Secker]: “Ten years old and irrepressibly curious, Ellie lives with her fisherman father, Peter, on the wild North Yorkshire coast. This vivacious and deeply moving novel portrays adult breakdown through the eyes of a child and celebrates the power of stories to shape, nourish and even save us.”
Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen [July 20, Fitzcarraldo Editions]: “Two young Israeli soldiers travel to New York after fighting in the Gaza War and find work as eviction movers. It’s a story of the housing and eviction crisis in poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that also shines new light on the world’s oldest conflict in the Middle East.” (print ARC)
August
Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang [Aug. 1, Lenny]: “Centered on a community of immigrants who have traded their endangered lives as artists in China and Taiwan for the constant struggle of life at the poverty line in 1990s New York City, Zhang’s exhilarating collection examines the many ways that family and history can weigh us down and also lift us up.”
The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death by John Bateson [Aug. 15, Scribner]: “An account of the hair-raising and heartbreaking cases handled by the coroner of Marin County, California throughout his four decades on the job—from high-profile deaths to serial killers, to Golden Gate Bridge suicides.”
The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading by Anne Gisleson [Aug. 22, Little, Brown and Company]: “A memoir of friendship and literature chronicling a search for meaning and comfort in great books, and a beautiful path out of grief.” (currently reading via NetGalley)
Midwinter Break by Bernard McLaverty [Aug. 22, W. W. Norton]: “A retired couple fly from their home in Scotland to Amsterdam for a long weekend. … [A] tender, intimate, heart-rending story … a profound examination of human love and how we live together, a chamber piece of real resonance and power.” (to review for BookBrowse)
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell [Aug. 22, Tinder Press]: “A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labor in an understaffed hospital … 17 encounters at different ages, in different locations, reveal to us a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots.”
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah [Aug. 24, Tinder Press]: “A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.” (print ARC to review for Shiny New Books)
Madness Is Better than Defeat by Ned Beauman [Aug. 24, Sceptre]: “In 1938, rival expeditions set off for a lost Mayan temple, one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it to New York. … Showcasing the anarchic humor and boundless imagination of one of the finest writers of his generation.”
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss [Aug. 24, Harper/Bloomsbury]: “A man in his later years and a woman novelist, each drawn to the Levant on a journey of self-discovery. Bursting with life and humor, this is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization – of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.” (currently reading via NetGalley)
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent [Aug. 29, Riverhead Books/4th Estate] “A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl’s heart-stopping fight for her own soul. … Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting.” (e-ARC to review for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
September
Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander [Sept. 5, Knopf]: “[A] political thriller that unfolds in the highly charged territory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pivots on the complex relationship between a secret prisoner and his guard. … Englander has woven a powerful, intensely suspenseful portrait of a nation riven by insoluble conflict.”
George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl [Sept. 5, Touchstone]: “[A]n emotionally riveting debut novel about an unlikely marriage at a crossroads. … With pitch-perfect prose and compassion and humor to spare, George and Lizzie is an intimate story of new and past loves, the scars of childhood, and an imperfect marriage at its defining moments.”
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng [Sept. 7, Little, Brown]: “In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned. … [E]xplores the weight of long-held secrets and the ferocious pull of motherhood-and the danger of believing that planning and following the rules can avert disaster, or heartbreak.”
Afterglow (A Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles [Sept. 12, Grove Press]: “A probing investigation into the dynamics between pet and pet-owner. Through this lens, we examine Myles’s experiences with intimacy and spirituality, celebrity and politics, alcoholism and recovery, fathers and family history.”
October
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty [Oct. 3, W. W. Norton]: “Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. Featuring Gorey-esque illustrations by artist Landis Blair.”
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan [Oct. 3, Scribner/Corsair]: “The pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller and a wealth of detail about organized crime … Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America, and the world.”
Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn [Oct. 3, Hogarth Shakespeare]: “Henry Dunbar, once all-powerful head of a family firm, has handed it over to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan. Relations quickly soured. Now imprisoned in a Lake District care home with only an alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape.” (print ARC)
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell [Oct. 5, Profile Books]: “Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown – Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop. … These wry and hilarious diaries provide an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff.”
In Shock by Rana Awdish [Oct. 17, St. Martin’s]: “Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, she was faced with repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians. … A brave road map for anyone navigating illness.”
American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee [Oct. 17, Crown]: “[I]n recent decades, conservationists have brought wolves back to the Rockies, igniting a battle over the very soul of the West. With novelistic detail, Nate Blakeslee tells the gripping story of one of these wolves, alpha female O-Six.” (print ARC)
November
The White Book by Han Kang [Nov. 2, Portobello Books]: “Writing while on a residency in Warsaw, the narrator finds herself haunted by the story of her older sister, who died a mere two hours after birth. A fragmented exploration of white things … the most autobiographical and experimental book to date from [the] South Korean master.”
Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance by Bill McKibben [Nov. 7, Blue Rider Press]: “Follows a band of Vermont patriots who decide that their state might be better off as its own republic. … McKibben imagines an eccentric group of activists who carry out their own version of guerrilla warfare … a fictional response to the burgeoning resistance movement.”
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [Nov. 14, Harper]: “Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. … A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient … a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.”
December
(Nothing as of yet…)
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 