Julian's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 05:38:50 -0700 60 Julian's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[AI and Algorithms: Mastering Legal and Ethical Compliance]]> 211835780 266 Arnoud Engelfriet 1634624564 Julian 4 3.80 AI and Algorithms: Mastering Legal and Ethical Compliance
author: Arnoud Engelfriet
name: Julian
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> Queer 23942 160 William S. Burroughs 0330300164 Julian 1 Cheap, lazy writing. 3.56 1985 Queer
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Julian
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1985
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
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Cheap, lazy writing.
]]> How to Leave the World 217721558 150 Marouane Bakhti 1739516133 Julian 2 4.11 How to Leave the World
author: Marouane Bakhti
name: Julian
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> Sprakeloos 6951263
Al in zijn recent verschenen essaybundel Schermutseling schreef Tom Lanoye over haar. Maar hij was nog lang niet klaar met zijn verhaal. Pas in Sprakeloos maakt hij de hele balans op. Die van zijn kleurrijke jeugd, van zijn worsteling met de liefde, van zijn conflicten met de kleine moederdiva, en ten slotte: van de strijd die zij, bron van leven en moedertaal, manmoedig voert, en waarin ze reddeloos en redeloos ten onder gaat - en de blijvende woede en pijn die dat oplevert.]]> 360 Tom Lanoye 9044611070 Julian 5 4.09 2009 Sprakeloos
author: Tom Lanoye
name: Julian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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Het mooiste boek die ik ooit lezen mocht. Bedankt aan de goedwillige vrouw die me dit meesterwerk op de boekenmarkt gratis in de handen duwde. "Bleiten zal je!". Oh ja. Dat en méér.
]]> Real Life 46263943
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.

Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.]]> 329 Brandon Taylor 0525538887 Julian 0 to-read 3.79 2020 Real Life
author: Brandon Taylor
name: Julian
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Gothic Soul 24641871 A Gothic Soul is the most acclaimed work of Czech Decadent prose. Expressing concerns that are unique to the Czech movement while alluding creatively and ironically to Joris-Karl Huysman's Against Nature, the novella is set in Prague, which is portrayed as a dead city, a city peopled by shades, who, like the protagonist � a nihilist and the "last scion of a noble line" � are only a dim reflection of the city’s medieval splendor. The man lives in a dreamworld, the labyrinth of his soul giving rise to visions. In his quest for meaning, he walks the city, often hallucinating, while pondering questions of religious fervor and loss of faith, the vanity of life, his own sense of social alienation, human identity and its relationship to a “nation,� the miserable situation of the Czechs under Habsburg rule, and Prague’s loss of its soul on the cusp of modernity as old sections, such as much of the squalid Jewish Quarter, are demolished to make way for gaudy new buildings and streets. With a history of madness running in the family and afraid the same fate awaits him, he ultimately retreats into seclusion, preferring the monastic way of life as the epitome of unity and wholeness and a tonic to present-day fragmentation. Yet Karásek eschews the mawkish, opting instead for darker tones that play with the tropes and motifs of Decadence while conflating the same-sex desires of his protagonist, the fatalism and futility of such an existence within the social construct of the day, with concerns for the dual fates of his nation and city.]]> 144 Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic 8086264467 Julian 0 to-read 3.75 1900 A Gothic Soul
author: Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic
name: Julian
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1900
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> Just Kids 206318521 Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.]]> 262 Patti Smith 006621131X Julian 0 to-read 4.27 2010 Just Kids
author: Patti Smith
name: Julian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals]]> 391660
In this Nazi crusade, homosexual prisoners were confined to death camps where, forced to wear pink triangles, they constituted the lowest rung in the camp hierarchy. The horror of camp life is described through diaries, previously untranslated documents, and interviews with and letters from survivors, revealing how the anti-homosexual campaign was conducted, the crackpot homophobic fantasies that fueled it, the men who made it possible, and those who were its victims, this chilling book sheds light on a corner of twentieth-century history that has been hidden in the shadows much too long.]]> 257 Richard Plant 0805006001 Julian 0 to-read 4.11 1986 The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals
author: Richard Plant
name: Julian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> Permanent Record 206012681 A visionary anthology that examines and reimagines the archive as a form of collective record-keeping, featuring work by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Douglas Kearney, Brenda Shaughnessy, Mahogany L. Brown, and many new and emerging voices.

Inspired by Naima Yael Tokunow’s research into the Black American record (and its purposeful scarceness), Permanent Record asks, what do we gain when we engage with our flawed cultural systems of remembrance? How does questioning and creating a deep relationship to the archive, and in some cases, spinning thread from air where there is none, allow us to prefigure the world that we want? Including reflections on identity and language, diasporic and first generation lived experiences, and responses to the ways the record upholds harm and provides incomplete understandings, Permanent Record hopes to reframe what gets to be a part of collective remembrance, exploring “possibilities for speculating beyond recorded multiplicity.�
]]> 224 Naima Yael Tokunow 1643622420 Julian 4 4.67 Permanent Record
author: Naima Yael Tokunow
name: Julian
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
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]]> De gezichten 60129037
Lise wordt steeds wantrouwiger, begint stemmen te horen en ziet de gezichten van de mensen om haar heen vervormen. Terwijl ze haar greep op de realiteit verliest en opgenomen wordt, zakt ze dieper en dieper weg in duistere gedachten en worstelt ze met de vraag hoe erg het is om zich daaraan over te geven.

De gezichten is een beklemmende en intens persoonlijke roman waar je in gezogen wordt, die onder je huid kruipt, en je voor lange tijd niet zal loslaten.

De gezichten verscheen oorspronkelijk in 1968 en is Ditlevsens eerste roman die in het Nederlands vertaald wordt: het is haar meest duistere roman, waarin ze diep en pijnlijk eerlijk doordringt tot de duisterste hoeken van de menselijke geest.]]> 179 Tove Ditlevsen 9493248070 Julian 0 to-read 3.79 1968 De gezichten
author: Tove Ditlevsen
name: Julian
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> My Friends 127488823
The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream.

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author at the peak of his powers.]]> 399 Hisham Matar 081299485X Julian 0 to-read 4.31 2024 My Friends
author: Hisham Matar
name: Julian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Slechte gewoontes 205994131 Slechte gewoontes is een coming-of-age roman over de reis die trans vrouw Alana aflegt om zichzelf te ontdekken in een wereld die geen ruimte voor haar heeft, met als achtergrond een arbeidersgezin in de rauwe arbeiderswijk San Blas in het Madrid van de jaren �80 en �90.

De ik-verteller verhaalt over de tienerjaren van een meisje zonder naam, gevangen in het lichaam van een jongen, een meisje dat enorm haar best doet zichzelf en de wereld waarin ze leeft te begrijpen. Het zijn de lessen van een aantal vrouwen die ze tijdens dit lange proces ontmoet die haar helpen het geweld te overwinnen waarmee ze bij elke stap geconfronteerd wordt.

Slechte gewoontes plaatste Alana S. Portera in één klap in de voorhoede van de Spaanse literaire scene. Een belangrijke stem, schrijnend, droevig, ontroerend en ad rem geestig tegelijk.]]> 246 Alana S. Portero 9493305112 Julian 0 to-read 4.35 2023 Slechte gewoontes
author: Alana S. Portero
name: Julian
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Book of Disappearance 42921509 What if all Palestinians vanished from their homeland overnight?

Alaa, a young Palestinian, is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance; that search, and his reaction to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out.

Critically acclaimed in Arabic, spare yet evocative, intensely intelligent in its interplay of perspectives, The Book of Disappearance is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine.]]> 256 Ibtisam Azem 0815611110 Julian 0 to-read 4.13 2014 The Book of Disappearance
author: Ibtisam Azem
name: Julian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Human Sacrifices 75599182 An undocumented woman answers a job posting only to find herself held hostage, a group of outcasts obsess over boys drowned while surfing, and an unhappy couple finds themselves trapped in a terrifying maze. With scalpel-like precision, Ampuero considers the price paid by those on the margins so that the elite might lounge comfortably, considering themselves safe in their homes.
Simultaneously terrifying and exquisite, Human Sacrifices is "tropical gothic" at its finest--decay and oppression underlie our humid and hostile world, where working-class women and children are consistently the weakest links in a capitalist economy. Against this backdrop of corrosion and rot, these twelves stories contemplate the nature of exploitation and abuse, illuminating the realities of those society consumes for its own pitiless ends.]]> 144 María Fernanda Ampuero Julian 0 to-read 3.83 2021 Human Sacrifices
author: María Fernanda Ampuero
name: Julian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe]]> 276063 328 Alexandre Koyré 0801803470 Julian 0 to-read 3.97 1957 From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe
author: Alexandre Koyré
name: Julian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Vesicapiscis 211193093 58 Aubrey Birch Julian 4 4.27 Vesicapiscis
author: Aubrey Birch
name: Julian
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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"I create a world in which I watch myself as though the world is watching"
]]> Kiezels 219219785 186 Judith Hermann 9493305368 Julian 2 3.68 2023 Kiezels
author: Judith Hermann
name: Julian
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
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Sterk begin � maar verloor me volledig seder het midden.
]]> <![CDATA[Eros and Alienation: Capitalism and the Making of Gendered Sexualities (Mapping Social Reproduction Theory)]]> 209191698 Eros and Alienation delves into the underexplored relationship between alienated labour and sexuality. Our deeply human drive to shape the world around us and fulfil ourselves through labour is subverted by capitalist alienation, leaving us to find fulfilment elsewhere.

As a result, our erotic drives become the central focus for transformation and life-making, but are themselves restricted and fuelled by whatever energy is left after completing the monetised or social reproductive work required to survive. This alienation encounters ongoing resistance, as life-making activity can never be fully separated from the person who labours.

Alan Sears explores the ways this alienation frames the processes of gender and sexual formation, showing how the organisation of work contributes to the development of a dominant regime of gendered sexualities, defined by a binary gender mapping of desire as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.]]> 200 Alan Sears 0745349439 Julian 0 to-read 4.50 Eros and Alienation: Capitalism and the Making of Gendered Sexualities (Mapping Social Reproduction Theory)
author: Alan Sears
name: Julian
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> All of This Unreal Time 221407670
MAX PORTER'S All of This Unreal Time takes this idea—the poetic concept of ‘perfect speech’—and turns it into a wild, psycholo-delic apology rant. Moving with Porter’s peerless linguistic skill between a single speaker’s self-lacerating ‘apology� to an excavation of family trauma, late-capitalist guilt and rage and the shame that attends—that must attend—modern masculinity. All this is, of course, handled with the usual slipperiness and smarts—where nothing is quite as it seems, pregnant with its opposite, a shape-shifting tour-de-force of voice and concept from our most exciting contemporary writer.]]> 110 Max Porter 1914236475 Julian 0 to-read 4.60 All of This Unreal Time
author: Max Porter
name: Julian
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> De vegetariër 24859409 De vegetariër de thema's menselijk geweld en mogelijke onschuld op bijzonder literaire wijze gecombineerd.]]> 222 Han Kang 9038899254 Julian 0 to-read 3.56 2007 De vegetariër
author: Han Kang
name: Julian
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Wolf 218395095 Een halfjaar na zijn verdwijning wordt zijn lichaam levenloos aangetroffen in een bos in Lapland. Onder zijn kleren vinden de speurders zijn dagboek terug, het verslag van zijn laatste reis naar het noorderlicht.
Tien jaar later slaat Lara het dagboek van haar overleden broer weer open. Ze kijkt terug op haar kinderjaren in een warm nest, de woelige maanden van Wolfs vermissing en de nog woeliger jaren na zijn dood. In dat verhaal probeert ze een positie in te nemen, als schrijver en als zus. Op die manier maakt ze haar eigen reis, een zwerftocht van rouw, niet op zoek naar verklaringen, wel naar stipjes licht in de duisternis.
Wolf is een waargebeurd verhaal, een beproeving voor een auteur die zich, net als haar broertje, altijd heeft laten leiden door haar verbeelding en de drang om verhalen te vertellen. Een onversneden ode aan de literatuur en de onweerstaanbare aantrekkingskracht van fictie.]]> 240 Lara Taveirne 9044654217 Julian 0 to-read 4.44 2024 Wolf
author: Lara Taveirne
name: Julian
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> How to Read Lacan 862526 132 Slavoj Žižek 1862078947 Julian 0 to-read 3.91 2006 How to Read Lacan
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: Julian
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Queer Theory of the State (Critic’s Essay Series)]]> 129917312 92 Samuel Clowes Huneke 3982389461 Julian 3 3.80 A Queer Theory of the State (Critic’s Essay Series)
author: Samuel Clowes Huneke
name: Julian
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
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Interesting in some aspects � but seems to fall into the exact rhetorical flaws it criticises modern queer theory for. Criticism without concrete political action.
]]> <![CDATA[The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions]]> 336843 114 Larry Mitchell 0930762002 Julian 5 4.52 1977 The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
author: Larry Mitchell
name: Julian
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
Extremely grateful for this book. Queer joy. Queer misery. Revolution alas!
]]> The Water Dancer 43982054 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.]]> 416 Ta-Nehisi Coates Julian 0 to-read 4.03 2019 The Water Dancer
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Julian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Ondraaglijke lichtheid 49607743 120 Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer 9044641972 Julian 0 to-read 3.87 Ondraaglijke lichtheid
author: Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
name: Julian
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> Levels of Life 17262198
"You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed..."

One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described him as "an unparalleled magus of the heart." This book confirms that opinion.]]> 128 Julian Barnes 0385350775 Julian 0 to-read 3.94 2013 Levels of Life
author: Julian Barnes
name: Julian
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> Disorganisation & Sex 62854763 223 Jamieson Webster 1916425097 Julian 3 4.13 Disorganisation & Sex
author: Jamieson Webster
name: Julian
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900]]> 182636836
As a foundational subject for physicians, surgeons and artists in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, anatomy was a privileged, male-dominated domain. Artistic and medical compe­tence depended on a deep knowledge of anatomy and offered cultural legitimacy, healing authority, and aesthetic discernment to those who practiced it. The anatomical image could serve as a virtual queer space, a private or shared closet, or a men's club. Serious anatomical subjects were charged with erotic, often homoerotic, undertones.

Taking brilliant works by Gautier Dagoty, William Cheselden, and Joseph Maclise, and many others, Queer Anatomies assembles a lost archive of queer expression-115 illustra­tions, in full-colour reproduction-that range from images of nudes, dissected bodies, penises, vaginas, rectums, hands, faces, and skin, to scenes of male viewers gazing upon works of art governed by anatomical principles. Yet the men who produced and savored illustrated anatomies were reticent, closeted. Diving into these textual and represen­ta­tional spaces via essayistic reflection, Queer Anatomies decodes their words and images, even their silences. With a range of close readings and com­par­ison of key images, this book unearths the connections between medical history, connoisseur­ship, queer studies, and art history and the understudied relationship between anatomy and desire.]]> 280 Michael Sappol 1350400874 Julian 0 to-read 4.33 Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900
author: Michael Sappol
name: Julian
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Against Nature: The Notebooks 23258421 Against Nature, a companion volume to Espedal's earlier Against Art, is an examination of factory work, love’s labor, and the work of writing. Espedal dwells on the notion that working is required in order to live in compliance with society, but is this natural? And how can it be natural when he is drawn toward impossible things—impossible love, books, myths, and taboos? He is drawn into the stories of Abélard and Héloïse, of young Marguerite Duras and her Chinese lover, and soon realizes that he, too, is turning into a person who must choose to live against nature.
“A masterpiece of literary understatement. Everybody who has recently been thirsting for a new, unexhausted realism, like water in the desert, will love this book.â€â€�Die Zeit, on the Norwegian edition]]> 192 Tomas Espedal 0857422359 Julian 0 4.07 2011 Against Nature: The Notebooks
author: Tomas Espedal
name: Julian
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone]]> 38461
For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. And everywhere there is the anguish of being black in a society that at times seems poised on the brink of total racial war. Overpowering in its vitality, extravagant in the intensity of its feeling, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone is a major work of American literature.  ]]> 496 James Baldwin 0375701893 Julian 5
Ik zou niet aanraden met dit te beginnen. Daar is Another Country of Giovanni's Room gepaster voor, maar het vult z'n oeuvre prachtig aan.

"Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it"

Oh, de pijn! Neem me in je armen Baldwin!]]> 4.32 1968 Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:
Net op de valreep! Dit is het zesde boek die ik dit jaar van Baldwin lees en ik ben hem zo zo zo dankbaar voor z'n diepte, z'n ruwheid, z'n genie. Had al 'n vermoeden na Giovanni's Room maar laat hem toch maar m'n favoriete schrijver zijn.

Ik zou niet aanraden met dit te beginnen. Daar is Another Country of Giovanni's Room gepaster voor, maar het vult z'n oeuvre prachtig aan.

"Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it"

Oh, de pijn! Neem me in je armen Baldwin!
]]> After the Sun 56355657 From a major new international voice, mesmerizing, inventive fiction that probes the tender places where human longings push through the cracks of a breaking world.

Under Canc�n's hard blue sky, a beach boy provides a canvas for tourists' desires, seeing deep into the world's underbelly. An enigmatic encounter in Copenhagen takes an IT consultant down a rabbit hole of speculation that proves more seductive than sex. The collapse of a love triangle in London leads to a dangerous, hypnotic addiction. In the Nevada desert, a grieving man tries to merge with an unearthly machine.

After the Sun opens portals to our newest realities, haunting the margins of a globalized world that's both saturated with yearning and brutally transactional. Infused with an irrepressible urgency, Eika's fiction seems to have conjured these far-flung characters and their encounters in a single breath. Juxtaposing startling beauty with grotesquery, balancing the hyperrealistic with the fantastical--"as though the worlds he describes are being viewed through an ultraviolet filter," in one Danish reviewer's words--he has invented new modes of storytelling for an era when the old ones no longer suffice.]]> 208 Jonas Eika 0593329104 Julian 0 to-read 2.85 2018 After the Sun
author: Jonas Eika
name: Julian
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> Terug naar Reims 39849053 Terug naar Reims keert Didier Eribon, nadat zijn vader is overleden, terug naar zijn geboortestad Reims, waar hij de Franse arbeiderswereld herontdekt die hij dertig jaar eerder achter zich had gelaten. Samen met zijn moeder bekijkt hij foto’s van vroeger � dit is het startpunt van dit boek. Eribon duikt in zijn eigen geschiedenis en in die van zijn familie, en gaat na hoe het klassensysteem hun levensloop heeft beïnvloed en nog steeds beïnvloedt.

In zijn verhaal komt een reeks opmerkelijke overdenkingen samen: over het klassensysteem in Frankrijk, over de invloed die de klassenachtergrond heeft op een schoolloopbaan, over de manier waarop zowel een klassenidentiteit als een seksuele identiteit tot stand komt, en over de recente geschiedenis van de Franse politiek, inclusief het veranderende stemgedrag van de arbeidersklasse. Dit alles wordt weerspiegeld in het gezin waarin Eribon is opgegroeid, dat na een lange periode van loyaliteit jegens de Communistische Partij op het Front National stemde.

Terug naar Reims combineert een autobiografisch verhaal met een sociologische analyse, wat resulteert in een sterk en complex persoonlijk essay. Van belang voor iedereen die zich interesseert voor de richting van de linkse politiek in de maatschappij, en voor iedereen die ooit heeft meegemaakt hoe je seksuele identiteit kan botsen met andere delen van je identiteit.

Didier Eribon is een Franse socioloog en filosoof. In zijn vroege jaren schreef hij een biografie van Michel Foucault. Hij is invloedrijk vanwege zijn visie op gender, onderwijs en sociale kwesties, zoals nationalisme, armoede en de toekomst van links.]]> 207 Didier Eribon 949171757X Julian 0 to-read 4.05 2009 Terug naar Reims
author: Didier Eribon
name: Julian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> Don't Leave Me This Way 64244556 Don’t Leave Me This Way blends archival research with sexual fantasy to produce a series of sonnets inspired by Gaétan Dugas, named by Randy Shilts as “Patient Zero� of the AIDS epidemic in North America. Committed to the utopian possibilities of elegy and pornography, Don’t Leave Me This Way exploits the absurdist beauty of the cut-up technique to voice a chorus of lost spirits: poignant, vengeful, and ready to ball.]]> 80 Eric Sneathen 1643621769 Julian 0 to-read 4.29 Don't Leave Me This Way
author: Eric Sneathen
name: Julian
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Uitnodiging voor een onthoofding]]> 8330945 190 Vladimir Nabokov Julian 0 to-read 3.51 1935 Uitnodiging voor een onthoofding
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Julian
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1935
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Something About Living 205275668 81 Lena Khalaf Tuffaha 1629222739 Julian 0 to-read 4.48 2024 Something About Living
author: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
name: Julian
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection]]> 59724109
A collection of powerful interconnected essays and affirmations that follow Mimi Zhu’s journey toward embodying and re-learning love after a violent romantic relationship, a stunning and provocative book that will guide and inspire readers to lean into love with softness

In their early twenties, Mimi Zhu was a survivor of intimate-partner abuse. This left them broken, in search of healing and ways to re-learn love. This work is a testament to the strength and adaptability all humans possess, a tribute to love. Be Not Afraid of Love explores the intersections of love and fear in self-esteem, friendship, family dynamics, and romantic relationships, and extends out to its effects on society and the greater political realm. In sharing their own intimate encounters with oppression, healing, joy, and community, Mimi invites readers to reflect deeply on their own experiences as well, with the intention of acting as a guide to undoing the hurt or uncertainty within them. In this heartrending and revolutionary book, Mimi reminds us, be not afraid of love.]]> 256 Mimi Zhu 0143137123 Julian 5 4.10 2022 Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection
author: Mimi Zhu
name: Julian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
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I thank the author for inspiring a little more care within myself when it comes to love < 3
]]> <![CDATA[Een bepaalde dag in het leven van iedereen]]> 60888242 460 Stijn Vranken Julian 0 to-read 3.95 Een bepaalde dag in het leven van iedereen
author: Stijn Vranken
name: Julian
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> Verzonnen lichaam 220947699 200 Siska Baeck 9493387143 Julian 0 to-read 3.65 Verzonnen lichaam
author: Siska Baeck
name: Julian
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Staart: op korte en hopelijk erna lange liefde]]> 219153340
Uitgeverij Staart is een nieuwe uitgeverij, ter noodzaak de mens van de illusie te ontzien dat we verschillen van andere staartlijders op deze aardbol, in de hoop het eindeloze gat in de boekenmarkt van de broodnodige zelfrelativering te voorzien enerzijds, en anderzijds de niet-lezers terug aan het lezen te krijgen.]]> 304 Reintje Reuse 946498841X Julian 4 4.16 Staart: op korte en hopelijk erna lange liefde
author: Reintje Reuse
name: Julian
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/25
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"Hoe de zoekende mens slechts de mens blijkt te zijn die ademt en leeft, en dat het zoeken pas stopt als je geliefden beginnen te huilen omdat je niet meer terugkomt, of je hebt besloten niet meer terug te komen, en dat het vredig is, zo te beseffen niets maar dan ook niets zeker te weten, niet in de toekomst, niet in het verleden. En dat, ondanks al het scepticisme jegens boeken zoals 'How to live in the now', 'Living in the now' en 'You Are Here', zelfs door diegenen die het lezen en net als jij nog zoekende zijn, ondanks het voldongen feit dat er handleidingen bestaan om te leren leven in het moment, je altijd achteraf merkt hoe hard je in het moment bleek te zitten terwijl je aan het zoeken was, dat je het zelfs onmogelijk acht niet in het moment te zitten, en je gebrekkige zelfbewustzijn enkel tot jou komt wanneer iemand je er op wijst."
]]> De A van Asta 219208103
De A van Asta is een wervelende roman over de intensiteit van onze studentenjaren, over wie we werkelijk zijn en wie we dachten dat we zouden worden, en over hoe onze ambities, angsten en herinneringen uit die tijd nooit hun greep loslaten op hoe we onze toekomst tegemoet treden.]]> 322 Tine Høeg 9083411958 Julian 0 to-read 4.07 2020 De A van Asta
author: Tine Høeg
name: Julian
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> The Details 63313297 An acclaimed Swedish author makes her English language debut with this intoxicating novel in the vein of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti, about a woman in the throes of a fever remembering the important people in her past, her memories laid bare in vivid detail as her body temperature rises.

A woman lies bedridden from a high fever. Suddenly she is struck with an urge to revisit a novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a get-well-soon message from Johanna, an ex-girlfriend who is now a famous television host. As she flips through the book, pages from the woman's own past begin to come alive, scenes of events and people she cannot forget.

There are moments with Johanna, and Niki, the friend who disappeared years ago without a phone number or an address and with no online footprint. There is Alejandro, who gleefully campaigns for a baby even though he knows their love has no future. And Brigitte, whose elusive qualities mask a painful secret.

The Details is a novel built around four portraits; the small details that, pieced together, comprise a life. Can a loved one really disappear? Who is the real subject of the portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush? Do we fully become ourselves through our connections to others? This exhilarating, provocative tale raises profound questions about the nature of relationships, and how we tell our stories. The result is an intimate and illuminating study of what it means to be human.]]> 144 Ia Genberg 0063309718 Julian 0 to-read 3.94 2022 The Details
author: Ia Genberg
name: Julian
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Transforming Communities: How People Like You Are Healing Their Neighborhoods]]> 35260504
Here's the good news. Millions of everyday people are ready to step into their power to transform their communities. And you are one of them. Take heart and be inspired by real stories of ordinary people who took action and changed their corner of the world, one block at a time. Equal parts inspiration, education, and Do-It-Yourself, Transforming Communities by veteran community activist Sandhya Jha will open your eyes to the world-healing potential within you, and give you the vision, the tools, and the encouragement to start transforming your neighborhood, one person at a time.]]> 144 Sandhya Jha 0827237154 Julian 0 to-read 4.36 Transforming Communities: How People Like You Are Healing Their Neighborhoods
author: Sandhya Jha
name: Julian
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> The Sorrows of Young Werther 16640 149 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 0812969901 Julian 0 to-read 3.71 1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Julian
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1774
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> Hij en ik 18730236 313 Alberto Moravia 9050930670 Julian 0 to-read 3.58 1971 Hij en ik
author: Alberto Moravia
name: Julian
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/10
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]]> The Red Book: Liber Novus 6454477 The Red Book, a large, illuminated volume he created between 1914 and 1930. Here he developed his principle theories—of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation—that transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with treatment of the sick into a means for higher development of the personality.

While Jung considered The Red Book to be his most important work, only a handful of people have ever seen it. Now, in a complete facsimile and translation, it is available to scholars and the general public. It is an astonishing example of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake. This publication of The Red Book is a watershed that will cast new light on the making of modern psychology.
212 color illustrations.]]> 371 C.G. Jung 0393065677 Julian 0 to-read 4.53 2009 The Red Book: Liber Novus
author: C.G. Jung
name: Julian
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> The Fall 11991
The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus' books.]]> 147 Albert Camus 0679720227 Julian 5
Crack my skull in two, why don't you. Odd. Terrible. Magnificent.]]> 4.07 1956 The Fall
author: Albert Camus
name: Julian
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
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review:
"Oh, my dear friend: do you know what he is, that solitary creature, wandering in the great cities...?"

Crack my skull in two, why don't you. Odd. Terrible. Magnificent.
]]> Eros the Bittersweet 150255 Eros is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with: "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her. What does the word mean?", Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view and styles, transcending the constraints of the scholarly exercise for an evocative and lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos William's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.
]]> 190 Anne Carson 1564781887 Julian 0 to-read 4.48 1986 Eros the Bittersweet
author: Anne Carson
name: Julian
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> Fledgling 60925 Fledgling, Octavia Butler's new novel after a seven year break, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly inhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted - and still wants - to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.]]> 310 Octavia E. Butler 0446696161 Julian 0 to-read 3.80 2005 Fledgling
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Julian
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Julian 0 to-read 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Julian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism]]> 123844668
‘Argues that a radical politics of neurodiversity  is necessary, not only for neurodivergent folk,  but for our collective liberation’� Professor Hel Spandler, editor,  Asylum magazine
‘A vital book that kindles the flames of a  neurodivergent revolution’� Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author of  Health Communism

Neurodiversity is on the rise. Awareness and diagnoses have exploded in recent years, but we are still missing a wider understanding of how we got here and why. Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the ‘normal� brain as a product of intensified capitalism.

Exploring the rich histories of the neurodiversity and disability movements, Robert Chapman shows how the rise of capitalism created an ‘empire of normality� that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine. Neurodivergent liberation is possible � but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism.  Empire of Normality  is an essential guide to understanding the systems that shape our bodies, minds and deepest selves � and how we can undo them.

Robert Chapman  is a neurodivergent philosopher who has taught at King’s College London and Bristol University. They are currently Assistant Professor in Critical Neurodiversity Studies at Durham University. They blog at  Psychology Today  and at  Critical Neurodiversity . ]]> 204 Robert Chapman 0745348661 Julian 0 to-read 4.34 2023 Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism
author: Robert Chapman
name: Julian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> Beton 214158358
Fleur Pierets over Beton:

‘Begin jaren �80 kregen de bewoners van Pescia Fiorentina opeens geen post meer. Tien jaar later stapte ik een museum binnen en begreep ineens, glashelder, waar hedendaagse kunst over gaat. Op hetzelfde moment beviel een vrouw van een kind en besloot haar man te vermoorden. In diezelfde week, 350 kilometer verderop, ging een dorpsbewoner stoofvlees eten in de plaatselijke taverne. En op de een of andere manier hebben al die verhalen met beton te maken.’]]> 107 Fleur Pierets 9493367096 Julian 4 3.81 2024 Beton
author: Fleur Pierets
name: Julian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative]]> 222070 A guide to the art of personal writing, by the author of Fierce Attachments and The End of the Novel of Love

All narrative writing must pull from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver a bit of wisdom. In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth.

How does one pull from one's own boring, agitated self the truth-speaker who will tell the story a personal narrative needs to tell? That is the question The Situation and the Story asks--and answers. Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras.

This book, which grew out of fifteen years teaching in MFA programs, is itself a model of the lucid intelligence that has made Gornick one of our most admired writers of nonfiction. In it, she teaches us to write by teaching us how to read: how to recognize truth when we hear it in the writing of others and in our own.
]]> 174 Vivian Gornick 0374528586 Julian 0 to-read 3.90 2001 The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative
author: Vivian Gornick
name: Julian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/30
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]]> Simple Passion 58678702 67 Annie Ernaux 1644213575 Julian 0 to-read 3.98 1991 Simple Passion
author: Annie Ernaux
name: Julian
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> De onafscheidelijken 55591612
Al snel wijken de twee niet meer van elkaars zijde. Sylvie en Andrée verdiepen zich in literatuur en filosofie en verkennen Parijs. Samen voeren ze een � vaak innerlijke � strijd tegen de conventionele verwachtingen rondom vrouwelijkheid, seksualiteit en geloof.

In deze niet eerder verschenen autobiografische roman blikt Simone de Beauvoir terug op haar bijzondere vriendschap met Zaza. De onafscheidelijken is een wonderschone kennismaking met de jeugd van een van ’s werelds invloedrijkste filosofen en een bijzondere verdieping van haar werk.]]> 215 Simone de Beauvoir 9059369378 Julian 0 to-read 4.00 2020 De onafscheidelijken
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: Julian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> The Fire Next Time 464260 The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,� written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,� The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.]]> 106 James Baldwin 067974472X Julian 5 4.55 1963 The Fire Next Time
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.55
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> Ecume des jours (Mirages) 28333309 164 Boris Vian 2756021636 Julian 0 to-read 3.60 1947 Ecume des jours (Mirages)
author: Boris Vian
name: Julian
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Julian 0 to-read 3.81 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Julian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0141185910 Julian 4 4.06 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative]]> 208580653 From the award-winning novelist of The Parisian and Enter Ghost comes an outstanding essay on the Palestinian struggle and the power of narrative.

Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University nine days before October 7th, 2023. The text of Hammad’s seminal speech and her afterword, written in the early weeks of 2024, together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what seems a turning point in the narrative of human history. Profound and moving, Hammad writes from within the moment, giving voice to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Recognizing the Stranger is a brilliant melding of literary and cultural analysis by one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and a foremost writer of fiction in the world today.

"Extraordinary and amazingly erudite. Hammad shows how art and especially literature can be much, much more revealing than political writing.� � Rashid Khalidi, author of the New York Times bestseller The Hundred Years� War on Palestine]]> 96 Isabella Hammad 0802163920 Julian 0 to-read 4.67 2024 Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative
author: Isabella Hammad
name: Julian
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> In the Absence of Men 477035 180 Philippe Besson 0786711612 Julian 0 to-read 3.94 2001 In the Absence of Men
author: Philippe Besson
name: Julian
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost]]> 60297840 213 Donald Niedekker 9083174409 Julian 0 to-read 3.61 2022 Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost
author: Donald Niedekker
name: Julian
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> Goodbye to Berlin 760702
In linked short stories, he says goodbye to Sally Bowles, to Fraulein Schroeder, to pranksters, perverts, political manipulators; to the very, very guilty and to the dwindling band of innocents. It is goodbye to a Berlin wild, wicked, breathtaking, decadent beyond belief and already -- in the years between the wars -- welcoming death in through the door, though more with a wink than a whimper.

~from the back cover]]> 208 Christopher Isherwood 0586047956 Julian 4 3.95 1939 Goodbye to Berlin
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: Julian
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1939
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> The Dream of the Celt 12980712
A subtle and enlightening novel about a neglected human rights pioneer by the Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa

In 1916, the Irish nationalist Roger Casement was hanged by the British government for treason. Casement had dedicated his extraordinary life to improving plight of oppressed peoples around the world—especially the native populations in the Belgian Congo and the Amazon—but when he dared to draw a parallel between the injustices he witnessed in African and American colonies and those committed by the British in Northern Ireland, he became involved in a cause that led to his imprisonment and execution. Ultimately, the scandals surrounding Casement’s trial and eventual hanging tainted his image to such a degree that his pioneering human rights work wasn’t fully reexamined until the 1960s.

Vargas Llosa, who has long been regarded as one of Latin America’s most vibrant, provocative, and necessary literary voices—a fact confirmed when the Peruvian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010—brings this complex character to life as no other writer can. This masterful work, sharply translated by Edith Grossman, tackles a controversial man whose story has long been neglected, and in so doing, pushes at the boundaries of historical novel.
]]> 368 Mario Vargas Llosa 0374143463 Julian 0 to-read 3.80 2010 The Dream of the Celt
author: Mario Vargas Llosa
name: Julian
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The War of the End of the World]]> 53925
~publisher's web site]]> 568 Mario Vargas Llosa 0571139612 Julian 0 to-read 4.24 1981 The War of the End of the World
author: Mario Vargas Llosa
name: Julian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Julian 0 to-read 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Julian
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Man’s Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Julian 0 to-read 4.39 1946 Man’s Search for Meaning
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Julian
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Het tegenovergestelde van een mens]]> 34538270 175 Lieke Marsman 9025446345 Julian 3 3.72 2017 Het tegenovergestelde van een mens
author: Lieke Marsman
name: Julian
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season]]> 58470825 This thoughtfully curated, deftly translated selection of Farrokhzad’s poems includes work from her whole writing life, early to late. Readers will thoroughly treasure this expansive poet of the quotidian; of longing, loss, and desire; of classical reinvention; of lexical variation and sonic beauty; of terrifying wisdom, hope, and grief.]]> 128 Forugh Farrokhzad 0811231658 Julian 4 4.26 1963 Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season
author: Forugh Farrokhzad
name: Julian
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/24
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves:
review:

]]> The Dreamers 624641
Denied their nightly 'fix' when the French government suddenly orders the Cinémathèque's closure, Théo, Isabelle and Matthew gradually withdraw into a hermetically sealed world of their own creation, an airless universe of obsessive private games, ordeals, humiliations and sexual jousting which finds them shedding their clothes and their inhibitions with equal abandon. A vertiginous free fall interrupted only, and tragically, when the real world outside their shuttered apartment succeeds at last in encroaching on their delirium.

The study of a triangular relationship whose perverse eroticism contrives nevertheless to conserve its own bruised purity, brilliant in its narrative invention and startling in ints imagery, The Dreamers (now a film by Bernardo Bertolucci) belongs to the romantic French tradition of Les Enfants Terribles and Le Grand Meaulnes and resembles no other work in recent British fiction.]]> 208 Gilbert Adair 0571216269 Julian 4 3.66 1988 The Dreamers
author: Gilbert Adair
name: Julian
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/22
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves:
review:
A beautiful compliment to the movie. A book to be revisited for sure.
]]> If Beale Street Could Talk 38463 197 James Baldwin 0307275930 Julian 4 4.28 1974 If Beale Street Could Talk
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:
oh, baldwin baby, kill me softly with your song why don't you
]]> The Holy Innocents 624644 160 Gilbert Adair 0749390093 Julian 0 to-read 3.69 1988 The Holy Innocents
author: Gilbert Adair
name: Julian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Het einde van de straat 214299184 Een pasgehuwde man trekt met zijn echtgenoot in het huis van zijn schoonouders, die elders hun geluk opzochten. Hoewel de woning aan het einde van de straat comfort biedt, worstelt de jonge schilder met die nieuwe werkelijkheid. Alsof hij zijn best heeft gedaan om zich aan te passen naar de normen, enkel en alleen om te ontdekken dat die structuren niet voor hem, voor hen, in leven werden geroepen. Het huis en zijn inwoners gaan steeds dieper gebukt onder een verzengende hitte. Terwijl zijn huwelijk dreigt te ontrafelen tracht de jongeman weer grip op het leven te krijgen door zijn wereld in verf te vatten. Tegen het verdwijnen, tegen de idee dat het makkelijker is om ‘normaal� te zijn.]]> 244 Angelo Tijssens 9464983078 Julian 5 “We zijn onze vorm kwijt, wij twee. We zijn amorf geworden, in beweging, kolkend. We lijken klaar om ons te schikken naar eender welke recipiënt, elke vorm die ons kan verdragen, die ons voor het wegvloeien behoudt en dan, wanneer het koken stopt en verstilt en verkilt, wanneer het water ijs wordt en de massa uitzet, de kruik breekt, dan is er de angst voor de dooi, want zonder vorm of tussen de barsten vloeit al wat vloeibaar is weg, door kieren en over de scherven, de grond in, de diepte, onmogelijk ooit nog terug te keren tenzij als damp, in druppels, een restje.�

Zij het de rode wijn die schuchter en eenzaam op m’n tafeltje stond, zij het m’n hemdje die wellicht een knoopje te veel onthulde, of zij het de ijsblauwe kaft van “Het Einde Van De Straat� die mensen in het gedempte maanlicht uitnodigde om te vragen wat ik las, of ze erbij mochten zitten en of ik het hen zou aanraden of niet (of wel!).

Net zoals Angelo Tijssens� debuutroman, “De Randen�, vind ik in dit boek wederom een verhaal meesterlijk geweven door materie, tijd en ruimte heen. Het boek gooit je te midden van iemands leven en wint aan cohesie naarmate de pagina’s voorbij razen � op de manier dat je ’n oude vriend zou inlichten over de gebeurtenissen van het afgelopen jaar. Niet lineair, maar diep menselijk. Daardoor voelt het makkelijk de auteur te vertrouwen en je over te geven tot het verhaal.

“Dat is wat schaarste doet, de plant verplicht zichzelf om niet langer naar de hemel te reiken maar om naar onder te groeien, met hoop en dorst en tegen beter weten in."

Angelo beheerst de kunst van de beeldspraak en weet me in dit verhaal keer op keer te raken met zijn scherp oog voor alledaagse processen, zoals hoe bloemen groeien of vleermuizen krijsend en blind rondfladderen. Vervolgens weet hij deze beelden te verbinden met situaties waarbij ik niet anders kan dan m’n tong drie keer binnensmonds te klikken en in verbijstering rond me te kijken (één op twee? Één op twee!?!!!).

Daarnaast waardeer ik ook hoe onmiskenbaar Vlaams en uitgesproken Queer dit boek is. Het is expliciet, maar noodzakelijk. Het werpt licht op een unieke (terloops herkenbare) relatiedynamiek zonder een normatief oordeel mee te geven. Vergeleken met het gebruikelijke Amerikaanse perspectief voelt dit verhaal dus verfrissend � of ja, regionaal en verkaveld (het is dan ook Vlaanderen).

“Omdat de drang om een wereld te scheppen ondergeschikt wordt aan de drang om een nest te bouwen, om te doen wat hij voor zichzelf nooit mogelijk achtte, wat hem altijd al, van kinds af aan werd ontzegd: ergens echt kunnen thuiskomen. Hij zal zich schikken naar wat hij denkt dat de norm is en hij zal verdwijnen in de structuren die nooit voor hem � voor hen � werden gebouwd. Hij zal denken dat het zo hoort.�

Ik kan het je niet goed uitleggen waarover dit boek gaat, maar neem een witte tuinstoel en zet je er gerust bij. Hou je van schilderen trouwens?
]]> 3.92 2024 Het einde van de straat
author: Angelo Tijssens
name: Julian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves:
review:
“We zijn onze vorm kwijt, wij twee. We zijn amorf geworden, in beweging, kolkend. We lijken klaar om ons te schikken naar eender welke recipiënt, elke vorm die ons kan verdragen, die ons voor het wegvloeien behoudt en dan, wanneer het koken stopt en verstilt en verkilt, wanneer het water ijs wordt en de massa uitzet, de kruik breekt, dan is er de angst voor de dooi, want zonder vorm of tussen de barsten vloeit al wat vloeibaar is weg, door kieren en over de scherven, de grond in, de diepte, onmogelijk ooit nog terug te keren tenzij als damp, in druppels, een restje.�

Zij het de rode wijn die schuchter en eenzaam op m’n tafeltje stond, zij het m’n hemdje die wellicht een knoopje te veel onthulde, of zij het de ijsblauwe kaft van “Het Einde Van De Straat� die mensen in het gedempte maanlicht uitnodigde om te vragen wat ik las, of ze erbij mochten zitten en of ik het hen zou aanraden of niet (of wel!).

Net zoals Angelo Tijssens� debuutroman, “De Randen�, vind ik in dit boek wederom een verhaal meesterlijk geweven door materie, tijd en ruimte heen. Het boek gooit je te midden van iemands leven en wint aan cohesie naarmate de pagina’s voorbij razen � op de manier dat je ’n oude vriend zou inlichten over de gebeurtenissen van het afgelopen jaar. Niet lineair, maar diep menselijk. Daardoor voelt het makkelijk de auteur te vertrouwen en je over te geven tot het verhaal.

“Dat is wat schaarste doet, de plant verplicht zichzelf om niet langer naar de hemel te reiken maar om naar onder te groeien, met hoop en dorst en tegen beter weten in."

Angelo beheerst de kunst van de beeldspraak en weet me in dit verhaal keer op keer te raken met zijn scherp oog voor alledaagse processen, zoals hoe bloemen groeien of vleermuizen krijsend en blind rondfladderen. Vervolgens weet hij deze beelden te verbinden met situaties waarbij ik niet anders kan dan m’n tong drie keer binnensmonds te klikken en in verbijstering rond me te kijken (één op twee? Één op twee!?!!!).

Daarnaast waardeer ik ook hoe onmiskenbaar Vlaams en uitgesproken Queer dit boek is. Het is expliciet, maar noodzakelijk. Het werpt licht op een unieke (terloops herkenbare) relatiedynamiek zonder een normatief oordeel mee te geven. Vergeleken met het gebruikelijke Amerikaanse perspectief voelt dit verhaal dus verfrissend � of ja, regionaal en verkaveld (het is dan ook Vlaanderen).

“Omdat de drang om een wereld te scheppen ondergeschikt wordt aan de drang om een nest te bouwen, om te doen wat hij voor zichzelf nooit mogelijk achtte, wat hem altijd al, van kinds af aan werd ontzegd: ergens echt kunnen thuiskomen. Hij zal zich schikken naar wat hij denkt dat de norm is en hij zal verdwijnen in de structuren die nooit voor hem � voor hen � werden gebouwd. Hij zal denken dat het zo hoort.�

Ik kan het je niet goed uitleggen waarover dit boek gaat, maar neem een witte tuinstoel en zet je er gerust bij. Hou je van schilderen trouwens?

]]> Dark Days 36436060 'So the club rose, the blood came down, and his bitterness and his anguish and his guilt were compounded'

Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, these searing essays blend the intensely personal with the political to envisage a better world.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 50 James Baldwin 0241337542 Julian 0 to-read 4.40 2018 Dark Days
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> No Name in the Street 256105
“It contains truth that cannot be denied.� � The Atlantic Monthly

In this stunningly personal document, James Baldwin remembers in vivid details the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness and the later events that scored his heart with pain—the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.]]> 208 James Baldwin 0307275922 Julian 0 to-read 4.50 1972 No Name in the Street
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Conversations with James Baldwin (Literary Conversations Series)]]> 38472
Twenty-seven interviews reprinted here come from a variety of sources―newspapers, radio, journals, and review―and show this celebrated author in all his eloquence, anger, and perception of racial, social, and literary situations in America.

Over the years Baldwin proved to be an easily accessible and cooperative subject for interviews, both in the United States and abroad. He frequently referred to himself as “a kind of transatlantic commuter.� Whether candidly discussing his own ghetto origins, his literary mission and achievements, his role in the civil rights movement, or his views on world affairs, black-and-white relations, Vietnam, Christianity, and fellow writers, Baldwin was always both popular and controversial.

This important collection contributes significantly to the clarification and expansion of the ideas in Baldwin's fiction, drama, essays, and poetry. It gives additional life to a stunning orator and major literary figure who considered himself a sojourner even in his own country. Yet early in his career Baldwin told Studs “I am an American writer. This country is my subject.â€]]> 312 James Baldwin 0878053891 Julian 0 to-read 4.49 1989 Conversations with James Baldwin (Literary Conversations Series)
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World]]> 53328332 The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause: capitalism. Our economic system is based on perpetual expansion, which is devastating the living world. There is only one solution that will lead to meaningful and immediate change: degrowth.

If we want to have a shot at surviving the Anthropocene, we need to restore the balance. We need to change how we see the world and our place within it, shifting from a philosophy of domination and extraction to one that’s rooted in reciprocity with our planet’s ecology. We need to evolve beyond the dusty dogmas of capitalism to a new system that’s fit for the twenty-first century.

But what about jobs? What about health? What about progress? This book tackles these questions and offers an inspiring vision for what a post-capitalist economy could look like. An economy that’s more just, more caring, and more fun. An economy that enables human flourishing while reversing ecological breakdown. By taking less, we can become more.]]> 336 Jason Hickel 1786091216 Julian 4 4.52 2020 Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
author: Jason Hickel
name: Julian
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/11
date added: 2024/08/11
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]]> Strangers 1347446 208 Taichi Yamada 1932234039 Julian 0 to-read 3.64 1987 Strangers
author: Taichi Yamada
name: Julian
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Transparency Society 25490453
Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.]]> 70 Byung-Chul Han 080479460X Julian 2 3.90 2012 The Transparency Society
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Julian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves:
review:
Some interesting ideas but overly pretentious, too causal and missing a strong foundation.
]]> <![CDATA[Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times (Posthumanities)]]> 30227589 Why contamination and compromise might be a starting point for doing something, instead of a reason to give up

The world is in a terrible mess. It is toxic, irradiated, and full of injustice. Aiming to stand aside from the mess can produce a seemingly satisfying self-righteousness in the scant moments we achieve it, but since it is ultimately impossible, individual purity will always disappoint. Might it be better to understand complexity and, indeed, our own complicity in much of what we think of as bad, as fundamental to our lives? Against Purity argues that the only answer—if we are to have any hope of tackling the past, present, and future of colonialism, disease, pollution, and climate change—is a resounding yes. Proposing a powerful new conception of social movements as custodians for the past and incubators for liberated futures, Against Purity undertakes an analysis that draws on theories of race, disability, gender, and animal ethics as a foundation for an innovative approach to the politics and ethics of responding to systemic problems.

Being against purity means that there is no primordial state we can recover, no Eden we have desecrated, no pretoxic body we might uncover through enough chia seeds and kombucha. There is no preracial state we could access, no erasing histories of slavery, forced labor, colonialism, genocide, and their concomitant responsibilities and requirements. There is no food we can eat, clothes we can buy, or energy we can use without deepening our ties to complex webbings of suffering. So, what happens if we start from there?

Alexis Shotwell shows the importance of critical memory practices to addressing the full implications of living on colonized land; how activism led to the official reclassification of AIDS; why we might worry about studying amphibians when we try to fight industrial contamination; and that we are all affected by nuclear reactor meltdowns. The slate has never been clean, she reminds us, and we can’t wipe off the surface to start fresh—there’s no fresh to start. But, Shotwell argues, hope found in a kind of distributed ethics, in collective activist work, and in speculative fiction writing for gender and disability liberation that opens new futures.]]> 264 Alexis Shotwell 0816698643 Julian 0 to-read 4.02 2016 Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times (Posthumanities)
author: Alexis Shotwell
name: Julian
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> Honderd jaar eenzaamheid 941517 428 Gabriel García Márquez 9029000147 Julian 4 4.09 1967 Honderd jaar eenzaamheid
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Julian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World]]> 49418 The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.]]> 212 Alan Downs 0738210617 Julian 3 4.02 2005 The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World
author: Alan Downs
name: Julian
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Man maakt stuk 210880022
Avond na avond verzamelt dezelfde groep jongens zich onder Davids raam. Ze roken, kletsen, nemen ruimte in. De nachten van de kunstenaar worden steeds korter, maar als de buurt de overlast te veel wordt, weigert hij zich bij hun klaagzang aan te sluiten, al weet hij niet of zijn moed wordt ingegeven door angst, verlangen of opportunisme.

Want de groep ontneemt hem misschien zijn rust, David pakt ook iets van ze terug. En dat heeft desastreuze gevolgen.

Man maakt stuk is een genadeloze ontleding van de man in al zijn hoedanigheden. Grappig en wraakzuchtig, obsessief en subversief.]]> 272 Maurits de Bruijn 9493320634 Julian 4 4.03 2024 Man maakt stuk
author: Maurits de Bruijn
name: Julian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves:
review:

]]> A Single Man 16842 186 Christopher Isherwood 0816638624 Julian 3 4.08 1964 A Single Man
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: Julian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1964
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/12
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review:
Perhaps, I am too caught up in the Future to appreciate the Past Isherwood speaks of. Perhaps, the South of France does not allow this, somewhat dreary, prose to penetrate its stubborn and all-too-forgiving idyllic sceneries. Perhaps.
]]> The Prophet 2547 The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.]]> 127 Kahlil Gibran 000100039X Julian 5 4.27 1923 The Prophet
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Julian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1923
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
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review:
"Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth"
]]> Ruimten rondom 16083792 Dertien hoofdstukken, elk met een ruimte-eenheid als vertrekpunt van de bladzijde,het bed, de slaapkamer, het appartement, uitdijend in steeds wijdere cirkels tot de straat, de buurt, de stad, de wereld, en tot een nieuwe verovering van de ruimte- vormen een wonderlijke ontdekkingsreis.
Perec ontvouwt een grote rijkdom aan genres, stemmen en stijlen: plaatsbeschrijvingen, gedichten, inventarislijsten, taalspelletjes, autobiografische fragmenten en mini-essays.
De toon is bij vlagen intiem als een dagboek, en sommige bladzijden behoren tot het aangrijpendste wat Perec geschreven heeft.]]> 117 Georges Perec 9029535032 Julian 4 4.21 1974 Ruimten rondom
author: Georges Perec
name: Julian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves:
review:
"Leven is van de enige ruimte naar de andere overgaan en proberen je daarbij zo min mogelijk te stoten."
]]> A Little Life 29408433 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship� (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST � MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST � WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE �

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.]]> 723 Hanya Yanagihara 1447294831 Julian 5 favorites 4.36 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Julian
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/04
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: favorites
review:
Painstakingly brilliant. However, I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to anyone.
]]> Zeno's Conscience 84737 Zeno’s Conscience is a miracle of psychological realism.]]> 437 Italo Svevo 0375727760 Julian 0 to-read 3.90 1923 Zeno's Conscience
author: Italo Svevo
name: Julian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1923
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech]]> 61319931
The word “glitch� implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren’t just bugs in mostly functional machinery—what if they’re coded into the system itself? In the vein of heavy hitters such as Safiya Umoja Noble, Cathy O’Neil, and Ruha Benjamin, Meredith Broussard demonstrates in More Than a Glitch how neutrality in tech is a myth and why algorithms need to be held accountable.

Broussard, a data scientist and one of the few Black female researchers in artificial intelligence, masterfully synthesizes concepts from computer science and sociology. She explores a range of examples: from facial recognition technology trained only to recognize lighter skin tones, to mortgage-approval algorithms that encourage discriminatory lending, to the dangerous feedback loops that arise when medical diagnostic algorithms are trained on insufficiently diverse data. Even when such technologies are designed with good intentions, Broussard shows, fallible humans develop programs that can result in devastating consequences.

Broussard argues that the solution isn’t to make omnipresent tech more inclusive, but to root out the algorithms that target certain demographics as “other� to begin with. With sweeping implications for fields ranging from jurisprudence to medicine, the ground-breaking insights of More Than a Glitch are essential reading for anyone invested in building a more equitable future.]]> 248 Meredith Broussard 0262047659 Julian 0 to-read 4.15 2023 More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech
author: Meredith Broussard
name: Julian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blueberries: Essays Concerning Understanding]]> 49933298 ‘I mean who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breath.�

The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage.

In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest.

She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, reread the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.]]> 256 Ellena Savage 1912854678 Julian 0 to-read 3.52 2020 Blueberries: Essays Concerning Understanding
author: Ellena Savage
name: Julian
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2020
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]]> A Field Guide to Getting Lost 76479 Wanderlust), or using the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge as a lens to discuss the transformations of space and time in late nineteenth-century America (River of Shadows), Rebecca Solnit has emerged as an inventive and original writer whose mind is daring in the connections it makes. A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit's own life to explore the issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown. The result is a distinctive, stimulating, and poignant voyage of discovery.]]> 209 Rebecca Solnit 0143037242 Julian 0 to-read 3.97 2005 A Field Guide to Getting Lost
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Julian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
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]]> <![CDATA[Data Science Ethics: Concepts, Techniques, and Cautionary Tales]]> 60011472
While data scientists and business managers are not inherently unethical, they are not trained to weigh the ethical considerations that come from their work - Data Science Ethics addresses this increasingly significant gap and highlights different concepts and techniques that aid understanding, ranging from k-anonymity and differential privacy to homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs to address privacy concerns, techniques to remove discrimination against sensitive groups, and various explainable AI techniques.

Real-life cautionary tales further illustrate the importance and potential impact of data science ethics, including tales of racist bots, search censoring, government backdoors, and face recognition. The book is punctuated with structured exercises that provide hypothetical scenarios and ethical dilemmas for reflection that teach readers how to balance the ethical concerns and the utility of data.]]> 272 David Martens 0192847279 Julian 0 to-read 4.71 Data Science Ethics: Concepts, Techniques, and Cautionary Tales
author: David Martens
name: Julian
average rating: 4.71
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date added: 2024/05/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother]]> 29209 291 James McBride 1573225789 Julian 0 to-read 4.13 1995 The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
author: James McBride
name: Julian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/19
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]]> Diepdiepblauw 61078175 diepdiepblauw. Ze heeft geleerd hoe je in een onrustige zee de kalmte kunt bewaren. En dat je bij hoge golven het beste naar de bodem duikt en het gebulder over je heen laat komen. Maar in het echte leven heb je aan zulke lessen niet veel.

In diepdiepblauw onderzoekt Nikki Dekker onze relatie met de dieren onderwater, waarvan we maar weinig begrijpen, met de mensen om ons heen, die vaak al even raadselachtig zijn, en bovenal: de relatie met onszelf. Welke identiteiten meten we onszelf aan en wanneer laten we die weer los?

diepdiepblauw is een essayistische coming-of-ageroman over het onstuitbare verlangen naar onbekende plekken, naar andere levens en naar het water dat je altijd zal dragen.]]> 296 Nikki Dekker 9403120916 Julian 4 4.02 2022 Diepdiepblauw
author: Nikki Dekker
name: Julian
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Out of the Shadows: The Psychology of Gay Men’s Lives]]> 52842883
Drawing on a lifetime's work as a clinical psychologist, Walt Odets uses the stories of his patients as well as those of his own deep relationships with other gay men to illuminate how these difficulties may be overcome. From a 74-year-old who only felt able to come out after his wife had died, to the boy raised in a strict religious family who worked his way to San Francisco, to the middle-aged defence lawyer who left everything behind to embrace a new life, the experiences here explore everything from grief to survival, childhood pain to the definition of gay itself. Out of the Shadows shows us how a new way forward is possible through learning to accept ourselves and others as they are, and independently inventing our own lives.]]> 347 Walt Odets 0141990147 Julian 0 to-read 4.45 2019 Out of the Shadows: The Psychology of Gay Men’s Lives
author: Walt Odets
name: Julian
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Being You: A New Science of Consciousness]]> 53036979 Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons work to create our conscious experience. How does this happen? Why do we experience life in the first person? After over twenty years researching the brain, world-renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth puts forward a radical new theory of consciousness and self. His unique theory of what it means to 'be you' challenges our understanding of perception and reality and it turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.]]> 352 Anil Seth 0571337708 Julian 0 to-read 4.06 2020 Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
author: Anil Seth
name: Julian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/26
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]]> Giovanni’s Room 406235 178 James Baldwin Julian 5 4.40 1956 Giovanni’s Room
author: James Baldwin
name: Julian
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
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A necessary re-read, which shifted my perspective on David and Giovanni tremendously.
]]> <![CDATA[Tropic of Capricorn (Tropic, #2)]]> 250 Tropic of Cancer chronicles his life in 1920s New York City. Famous for its frank portrayal of life in Brooklyn's ethnic neighborhoods, and Miller's outrageous sexual exploits, Tropic of Capricorn is now considered a cornerstone of modern literature.
]]> 348 Henry Miller 0802151825 Julian 0 currently-reading 3.84 1939 Tropic of Capricorn (Tropic, #2)
author: Henry Miller
name: Julian
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/20
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]]> The Color Purple 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

â€Áè±ð²¹»å¾±²Ô²µ The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.â€� —Tayari Jones

�The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 Julian 0 currently-reading 4.40 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Julian
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/20
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]]> Nachtschuim 56982285
Nachtschuim is een roman over het onvermogen van een mens om zich te binden: aan andere mensen, aan een carrière, aan de liefde, aan de realiteit. Het is een verhaal over ouderliefde en ouderhaat, over vergankelijkheid, loyaliteit en de flinterdunne lijn tussen waan en werkelijkheid. Claassen is zowel een romantische cynicus als een cynische romanticus. Auteur Koen Strobbe schiep opnieuw een personage en een verhaal dat je maar niet wilt loslaten.]]> 334 Koen Strobbe 9463933662 Julian 4 3.91 2021 Nachtschuim
author: Koen Strobbe
name: Julian
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/04/14
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Het boek tastte waarlijks mijn realiteitszin aan. Dan kan je enkel maar applaudisseren.
]]>