Finished reading De omweg naar Santiago
book
Rated Multatuli: leven en werk van Eduard Douwes Dekker 8/10
Dik van der Meulen lijkt alle informatie die er over Multatuli/Eduard Douwes Dekker te achterhalen valt, achterhaald te hebben en heeft op basis van al die gegevens toch een bijzonder leesbare biografie geschreven. <br/><br/>Fijne studie van dit "vat vol tegenstrijdigheden" en zijn werk, tijd en omgeving.
Rated The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories 6/10
Rated Domela, een hemel op aarde 6/10
Ondanks een onzorgvuldige, wat gezwollen stijl, een regen aan uitroeptekens en overbodig persoonlijk commentaar ('terecht!') komen de persoon Domela Nieuwenhuis en zijn politieke leven redelijk uit de verf. Jan Meyers is geen briljant analist van de tweede helft van de 19e eeuw en wat Nieuwenhuis' historische betekenis daarin en daarna was blijft nogal onduidelijk.
Rated Homegoing 8/10
This is an ambitious book. Homegoing follows the descendants of two (half)sisters born in present-day Ghana in the 18th century. Following the two family lines, both tangled up in the history of slavery, Gyasi maps the experience of being black on both sides of the Atlantic. She manages to wrap a lot of history and a lot of pain in this novel. Downside of her broad scope and multigenerational approach is that her characters lack some depth, sometimes merely cardboard pawns pushed through the historical scheme in which their lives are embedded. Yet, to fit all this into just 300 captivating pages is quite an achievement.
Wants to read Africa's Discovery of Europe: 1450-1850
Rated Tales of Falling and Flying 10/10
With deceptively plain language and within just a few pages a story, Loory paints little universes in which a little magic and imagination overrule everyday reality. Easy to read, hard to forget.
Rated Amsterdam: geschiedenis van de meest vrijzinnige stad ter wereld 6/10
No shocking new information for those familiar with Amsterdams history here but Shorto is a skilled writer and effortlessy weaves the stories of some of Amsterdams defining characters into the city's history and that of the modern world. His enthusiasm for his 'adoption city' is charming and makes this book an easy read but it also seems to inform a lot of his rather bold claims about the city's role in the defining of liberalism as the world knows it today. Interesting approach nonetheless, though somewhat overstretched at times.
Rated The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 6/10