Sabje's Blog: Massive Book Haul

A little while ago I visited the Boekenfestijn which is a kind of book festival in the Netherlands where they sell books for a very low price. If you live in the Netherlands or Belgium I recommend looking at their website to see when the Boekenfestijn is near you.

I went there intending to buy no more than 4 books but ended up buying 18. I am pretty satisfied with all my purchases from that day and am planning on visiting the next Boekenfestijn with a bigger bag and a bit more cash on hand. Book Haul I’ll provide you guys with a little list of the books I bought with links to Bookdepository so you can find a copy if you're interested.

from top to bottom

Thief of time – Terry Pratchett
Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed.
And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater -- how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time.
But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time, for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone's problems.
Thief of Time comes complete with a full supporting cast of heroes and villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (who left before they became famous)
Nation – Terry Pratchett
Alone on a desert island — everything and everyone he knows and loves has been washed away in a storm — Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He’s completely alone — or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird, and gives him a stick that can make fire.
Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She’s certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, that all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship’s parrot, until other survivors arrive to take refuge on the island. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things (including how to milk a pig, and why spitting in beer is a good thing), and start to forge a new nation.
Night watch – Terry Pratchett
'Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.'
For a policeman, there can be few things worse than a serial killer at loose in your city. Except, perhaps, a serial killer who targets coppers, and a city on the brink of bloody revolution. The people have found their voice at last, the flags and barricades are rising...And the question for a policeman, an officer of the law, a defender of the peace, is:
Are you with them, or are you against them?
Evening class – Maeve Binchy
Thirty people join an Italian evening class. All have their own reasons. Connie needs to escape from an unhappy home life; Lou has criminal intentions. Aidan and Signora have organised the classes. All their lives are changed forever.
Midsummer nights – Jeanette Winterson
An anthology of opera-inspired stories by some of the most acclaimed writers of modern fiction includes new work by Kate Atkinson, Alexander McCall Smith, Ruth Rendell, Anne Enright, and many more
The Chapel at the edge of the world – Kirsten McKenzie
Emilio and Rosa are childhood sweethearts, engaged to be married. But it is 1942 and the war has taken Emilio far from Italy, to a tiny Orkney island where he is a POW. Rosa must wait for him to return and help her mother run the family hotel on the shores of Lake Como, in Italy. Feeling increasingly frustrated with his situation, Emilio is inspired by the idea of building a chapel on the barren island. The prisoners band together to create an extraordinary building out of little more than salvaged odds and ends and homemade paints. Whilst Emilio's chapel will remain long after the POW camp has been left to the sheep, will his love for Rosa survive the hardships of war and separation? For Rosa is no longer the girl that he left behind. She is being drawn further into the Italian resistance movement and closer to danger, as friendships and allegiances are ever complicated by the war. Human perseverance and resilience are at the heart of this strong debut and the small Italian chapel remains, as it does in reality on the island of Lamb's Holm, as a symbol of these qualities.
The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish Legends – Jennifer Westwood, Sophia Kingshill
Scotland's rich past and varied landscape have inspired an extraordinary array of legends and beliefs, and many of the most intriguing are collected here: stories of heroes and bloody feuds; giants, fairies, and witches; and accounts of local customs and traditions. Their range extends across the country, from the Borders with their haunting ballads, via Glasgow, site of St. Mungo's miracles, to the fateful battlefield of Culloden, and finally to the Shetlands, home of the seal-people. More than simply retelling these stories, this collection explores their origins, showing how and when they arose and investigating what basis they have in historical fact. It uncovers the events that inspired Macbeth, probes the claim that Mary King’s Close is the most haunted street in Edinburgh, and examines the surprising truth behind the fame of the MacCrimmons, Skye's unsurpassed bagpipers. Moreover, it reveals how generations of Picts, Vikings, Celtic saints, and Presbyterian reformers shaped the myriad tales that still circulate. The result is a thrilling journey through Scotland's legendary past and an endlessly fascinating account of the traditions and beliefs that play such an important role in its heritage.
Man walks into a pub – Pete Brown
In Man Walks into a Pub, Pete Brown takes us on a journey through the amazing history of beer, from the first sacred sip of ancient Egyptian bouza to the last pint of lager on a Friday night. It’s an extraordinary tale of yeast-obsessed monks and teetotaling prime ministers; of exploding breweries, a bear in a yellow nylon jacket, and a Canadian who changed the drinking habits of a nation. It’s also the story of the rise of the British pub, from humble origins through an epic, thousand-year struggle to survive bad government and misguided commerce.
Sense and Sencebility and Sea Monsters – Ben H. Winters, Jane Austen.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!
Island Beneath the Sea – Isabel Allende

Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruelest of circumstances.
Een bijzondere liefde – Johannes Andorjan (dutch version)
Johanna Adorján's grandparents were unconventionally elegant and endlessly exotic; they survived the Holocaust, fled Budapest during the uprising of 1956, and lived a glamorous and mysterious life in Denmark—their pasts never discussed, even within the family. An Exclusive Love is Adorján's poignant and loving reconstruction of what may have happened on the day of their deaths, when Adorján was just twenty. Investigating the rich and surprising story of their lives, Adorján reveals the compromises they made and risks they took, and what it meant for her own family. This memoir tells of a couple's extravagant devotion to each other, and their granddaughter's later discovery of complex personalities, long-buried family secrets, and why they ultimately decided, together, to take their own lives. W. G. Sebald's translator Anthea Bell renders Adorján's brilliantly constructed, powerfully concise memoir with stunning clarity. Beautifully written, tender but never sentimental, An Exclusive Love is a vivid portrait of a true twentieth-century couple.
The memory of running – Ron McLarty
Rolling down the driveway of his parents' house in Rhode Island on his old Raleigh bicycle to escape his grief, the emotionally bereft Smithy embarks on an epic, hilarious, luminous, and extraordinary journey of discovery and redemption.
Crime the Cocoa – Joanna Carl
The first three books in the "Chocoholic Mystery Series" are packaged in one volume. The series begins with the "Chocolate Cat Caper" and continue through "Chocolate Bear Burglary" and "Chocolate Frog Frame-up." Each tale includes chocolate trivia and lore.
One Fifth Avenue – Candace Bushnell
From one of the most consistently astute and engaging social commentators of our day comes another look at the tough and tender women of New York City--this time, through the lens of where they live.
One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into--one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established--or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building.
fin de Siecle – Selden Edwards (dutch version)
Thirty years in the writing, Selden Edwards' dazzling first novel is an irresistible triumph of the imagination. Wheeler Burden-banking heir, philosopher, student of history, legend's son, rock idol, writer, lover, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero-one day finds himself wandering not in his hometown of San Francisco in 1988 but in a city and time he knows mysteriously well: Vienna, 1897. Before long, Wheeler acquires a mentor in Sigmund Freud, a bitter rival, a powerful crush on a luminous young woman, and encounters everyone from an eight-year-old Adolf Hitler to Mark Twain as well as the young members of his own family. Solving the riddle of Wheeler's dislocation in time will ultimately reveal nothing short of one eccentric family's unrivaled impact upon the course of human history.
De 13 uren des levens – Robert Mann (dutch book& dutch link)
Al op jonge leefijd beheerst Sebastiaan de Vries het schildersambacht in al zijn facetten en tot op het allerhoogste niveau. Zijn leven neemt een radicale wending wanneer hij verstrikt raakt in het web van de machtige en meedogenloze koopman Charles Bourget.
Na een aaneenschakeling van dramatische en tragische gebeurtenissen, die Sebastiaan noodgedwongen langs vele plaatsen in Europa voert, komt hij uiteindelijk terecht in een gehucht in het zuiden van Engeland, waar hij als een verbitterde en vroegoude man, zijn dagen slijt. Totdat de twaalfjarige Thomas Morton op zijn pad komt, die vastbesloten is de sinistere spelonken in de ziel van de meester te verkennen en zijn diepste geheim te doorgronden...
Sense and sensibility the Marvel adaptation - Nancy Butler, Sonny Liew, Jane Austen
Emma the Marvel adaptation – Nancy Butler, Janet lee, Jane Austen