Fun & Famous
4 BOOKS THAT MAY RECOMMEND TO YOU
There was a time (okay, I was eight, but still) when I even read while I was eating. I studied Dutch and if you mentioned a newly released book, you could bet I had read it. But then I got busy and my reading consumption decreased. And suddenly I was a mother and there was never ever a book on my nightstand anymore. Well, it might have been there, but reading… the idea!
What happened, happened. Little kids grew up and bigger and apparently I’m getting a bit better at juggling hair braiding, meeting deadlines, and chatting with my husband, but suddenly I’m reading books. And completely out of the blue, huh. I’m surprised myself (maybe it’s because of this this). Because I’m really proud of that and I also have an incredible urge to evangelize about everything I see and find beautiful in life, I’m sharing my recently read favorites with you in the hope that you didn’t quite know what you should read next and this post comes sailing in like the proverbial gift from heaven. Maybe not the most original books, but certainly accompanied by honest commentary.
1. Favorite – Kim van Kooten
I was afraid to read this book for a long time because I was scared that a. I would never be able to have sex normally again (like this for example) without finding men disgusting (except for mine of course) and b. I would never dare to leave my children with any man again. Not that I do that very often, but you get me.
But I could handle it because I saw the main character (it really happened) on DWDD and saw that she eventually had a beautiful life. With a husband and three children and fun and glamour and a good job. Kim van Kooten is a word artist and this book could easily go to the cinema. Especially the sequence where Puck (the main character) gives a presentation about ‘dad’ (who is not her father at all, but her mother’s new man who abuses her) in the class where ‘dad’s’ granddaughter is also sitting. The granddaughter screams ugly things and Puck is terrified that she knows ‘the little secret’ and that this will be shouted throughout the class. She hopes the walls will collapse and lava will flow out and that a fighter jet will fly through the board and everyone will then be dead and deaf.
2. Primates of Park Avenue – Wednesday Martin
Something lighter after the heavy crying work of Kim van Kooten. ‘Primates of Park Avenue’ is about (again, it really happened) a woman who moves with her husband and son to the Upper East Side in New York. You know, the neighborhood where you have to audition to even view a five million dollar apartment (just take a look), where women easily spend a hundred thousand a year on their wardrobe and where children really feel sorry for someone if they don’t have a private jet.
“And if you dare to mention a book called ‘The Confused Guinea Pig’ it should be rewarded with a purchase and read”
Martin describes how she trudges through the streets of the Upper East Side, eventually succumbing to a Birkin Bag (the basic uniform of a Park Avenue mother) and compares these richest mothers in the world to baboon troops and other species she studied for her anthropological fieldwork.
It’s delightful, delightful, delightful with a surprisingly sad, surprising and all’s well that ends well (well, sort of) ending. And suddenly you’re very satisfied with your own life where at least you have something to say.
3. The Confused Guinea Pig – Paulien Cornelisse
Admittedly, I bought it but haven’t read it yet, but every letter from Paulien Cornelisse I find grand in their smallness. This is a must-have read, because everyone is going to read this book because she sold 1.1 million books of her other books and if you dare to mention a book called ‘The Confused Guinea Pig’, it should be rewarded with a purchase and read.
4. The American Princess – Annejet van der Zijl
Extremely praised by everyone and everything. In my opinion a bit too much, because I found it quite dryly written and the clichés flew at you. But the life story of this lady and the research of Annejet is so thorough and super that she should get a medal for it. Although given her other book (in her biography about Prince Bernhard she uncovers a bastard here and there) it’s not very likely that will happen.
