Willem van Toorn
Ton Langendorff
Emanuel Querido – A biography
Precise? – Mathematicians
of the famous publisher, also the
always present us with the final
founder of Querido Verlag. Born
result, the clear-cut formulas
into Amsterdam’s Jewish com-
that most of us are unable to
munity, a background from which
fathom. We don’t hear anything
he struggled to break away. New
about what it took to arrive at
archive material has allowed the
that result. The beauty of maths
author to present a complete pic-
is the final product; this book
ture of Emanuel Querido, who was
shows us the “way there”.
murdered in Sobibor in 1943.
Henk Schulte Nordholt
Mark Traa
China and the Barbarians –
The Fairest in the Land – The
A surprising portrait of China,
previously untold story of the
twenty-five years after the
pre-war generation of Dutch
brutal suppression of the
beauty queens. Traa also
protest on Tiananmen Square.
explains how these women
The history of a country
fared in their later lives.
struggling with its identity in a shrinking world.
Pauline Slot
Rutger Vahl Museums: The Agony and the
Wally Tax – The first Dutch rock
Ecstasy – Why do we actually
idol. With fame come money,
visit museums? And what kind
groupies and madness. Vahl
of experience do we have when
follows Tax on the path from
we’re there? Slot was tempted
adulation to social security in
by spectacular buildings, saw
this account of Tax’s struggle
the back of people’s heads in
with depression and addiction.
front of the most popular paintings, and checked out museum shops and restaurants.
Joost Zwagerman
Barbara Stok Vincent – The Netherlands’
The Silence of Light –
most widely translated
Zwagerman goes on an
graphic novel, about the
inspired search for the
life of Van Gogh during the
different facets of the
brief, intense period that the
“intensity of silence”. For all
artist spent in the south of
artists, light is an important
France. Sold to 12 countries.
tool for expressing the atmosphere of silence.
non-fiction
Are Mathematicians Really That