Bibliophile Bart Van Aken has been collecting"es about reading for several years. This book contains his own personal selection. Including such declarations of love as ” Reading is that fruitful miracle of communication in the midst of solitude” (Marcel Proust), surprising, witty statements like ” Outside of a dog, a book is a man`s best friend. Inside of a dog it`s too dark to read” (Groucho Marx) & wise statements to mull over, including ” We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it” (Anthony Burgess). Every"e is presented in a unique, original & tailor-made design by Dooreman, with an adapted font or special letter shapes. Where applicable, the"e has also been provided in the original language alongside the English, with a brief explanation, such as the author & context. ...

This is the definitive manual for the hopeless Venetophile. Love of Venice can strike anyone. Among the heavyweights with serious cases were Lord Byron, Richard Wagner, Ezra Pound & Ernest Hemingway. Symptoms today include: wishing that the stars of films set in Venice would move aside so that you can get a better view of the scenery; wondering why people ask if you had good weather when you were there
- as if rain could dampen your love; thinking that people who go to Tuscany or Provence must be mad; believing that the ” Per San Marco” street sign with arrows pointing in opposite directions makes perfect sense; &, consoling yourself when you leave by remembering the generations of Venetian merchants who, as they were borne away from Venice, vowed to be back as soon as they had more money. There is no cure for this affliction. This is a guide to managing it.
...

Description: ` One of the greatest escape stories I`ve ever read` Mail on Sunday An ordinary man`s extraordinary escape from Mao`s brutal labour camps Xu Hongci was an ordinary medical student when he was incarcerated under Mao`s regime & forced to spend years of his youth in China`s most brutal labour camps. Three times he tried to escape. & three times he failed. But, determined, he eventually broke free, travelling the length of China, across the Gobi desert, & into Mongolia. It was one of the greatest prison breaks of all time, during one of the worst totalitarian tragedies of the 20th Century. This is the extraordinary memoir of his unrelenting struggle to retain dignity, integrity & freedom; but also the untold story of what life was like for ordinary people trapped in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Review: ” One of the greatest escape stories I`ve ever read...will live on as a timeless testament to the resilience of the human spirit” * MAIL ON SUNDAY * ” One of the most compelling & moving memoirs to emerge from Communist China...gripping.” * LOS ANGELES TIMES * ” Riveting... There are many memoirs by Chinese imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), but I`ve never read one, by a loyal Party member, like this... While books such as this cannot be openly sold in China, Xu Hongci`s will of course be smuggled in & will amaze readers, especially those under forty.” * JONATHAN MIRSKY, Literary Review * ” While there are notable victims` accounts of Nazi & Soviet atrocities, there has largely been silence from those who actually suffered at first hand the worst of Red China`s astounding inhumanity to its own people. Xu`s moving account [is] a must-read” * DAILY MAIL * ” Xu Hongci is China`s Louis Zamperini, an ordinary man who simply refused to be broken. To understand the deepest source of China`s rise, read Xu Hongci`s astonishing epic, a tale of ingenuity, bravery &, most importantly, unshakeable determination. Xu`s chronicle, masterfully translated by Erling Hoh, is the story of modern China itself: the struggle for freedom of body & mind.” * EVAN OSNOS, China correspondent at the New Yorker & author of the acclaimed Age of Ambition * ”I am struck by the freshness of Xu Hongci`s whole story. We have plenty of reminiscences by intellectuals & party officials in China, but it is rare to find memoirs of ordinary people. & most tend to focus on the Cultural Revolution, whereas Xu Hongci starts his account with the Second World War, giving the reader a much better sense of how the entire Maoist era evolved over time. While most memoirs tell us how the victims are eventually crushed by an unforgiving system, one of the most striking aspects of Xu`s account is his determination to gain freedom. Xu escapes again & again, his moral integrity seemingly unbroken.” * PROF FRANK DIKOTTER, author of Mao`s Great Famine * ” An important book: the gripping & deeply moving account of a man`s lifelong struggle to reach freedom, driven by an indomitable will to survive in Mao`s China.” * XIAOLU GUA, author of Once Upon a Time in the East * ” An understated tribute to those who suffered, & a thrilling account of numerous acts of defiance: small or large, often costly.” * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * ” Gripping... an inspiring story of the strength of the human spirit in the face of greed & cruelty.” * SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST * ” Reads like a Hollywood film
- but this account is true.” * PRESS ASSOCIATION ` Book of the Week` * ” There are escape stories & then there is this. It deserves to become a classic, like Jung Chang`s Wild Swans, not only for Xu Hongci`s survival against the odds, but for confronting us unsparingly with what happens when folly & intolerance meet unfettered political power.” * THE NATIONAL (Scotland) * ”[ Xu Hongci] takes the reader on a turbulent & fraught journey of capture, escape, evasion, survival & love. Translated with immense skill & talent, it`s a thrilling read.” * The Bookbag * ”A masterpiece... Xu is the only known escapee from Mao`s prisons” * Washington Post * ” Gripping, moving & eye-opening” * Asian Review of Books * Author Biography: Xu Hongci It took Xu Hongci four attempts before he finally escaped the labour camps. He then travelled the length of China into Mongolia
- only to be arrested & sentenced to two years in a Mongolian prison for illegally entering the country. After serving his sentence, Xu Hongci met & married a Mongolian nurse, started a family &, after Mao`s death, returned to China where he died in 2008. Erling Hoh Erling Hoh is a Swedish-Chinese journalist who came across a Chinese copy of Xu Hongci`s memoir in a Hong Kong library. After tracking down Xu Hongci`s Chinese publisher &, eventually, his wife & children, he obtained the original manuscript that contained much richer content than the original Chinese edition.

...

This is a rich & enjoyable novel about marriage, love & betrayal, from the great German realist Theodor Fontane. Charming, cheerful Count Holk is delighted to be called away from his solemn wife to the distant court of a Danish princess. Swept up in the romance of his new, lively surroundings at a `castle by the sea`, the Count does not realize that not everyone there is what they seem
- & that a wrong decision may have fatal consequences. Published in 1892, this tragicomic work of failing marriage & modern sexual politics is full of the irony, elegance & masterful dialogue for which Theodor Fontane is acclaimed. Theodor Fontane was born in the Prussian province of Brandenburg in 1819. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he made his living as a writer. From 1855 to 1859, he lived in London & worked as a freelance journalist & press agent for the Prussian embassy. While working as a war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1 he was taken prisoner, but released after two months. His first novel, Before the Storm, was published when he was fifty-eight & was followed by sixteen further novels, of which Effi Briest, No Way Back & On Tangled Paths are all published in Penguin Classics. He died in 1898. Hugh Rorrison & Helen Chambers have both published extensively on German literature, & translated together the Penguin Classics translation of Fontane`s Effi Briest. ” No Way Back has the amplitude, the social & personal varieties, we expect of the major social novel; it surely ranks among the most imaginatively challenging & intellectually satisfying attainments in that dominant nineteenth-century form”. (Paul Binding, The Spectator). ” Helen Chambers & Hugh Rorrison have enhanced on the previous English version.. .natural, idiomatic”. (Ritchie Robertson, Times Literary Supplement). ” Theodor Fontane`s standing in Germany is comparable to Jane Austen`s in the English-speaking world.. .his best work is an elegant & engaging blend of irony, penetration & compassion”. (Helen Chambers).
...

” There is no way but gentlenesse to redeeme a Hawke” Edmund Bert, 1619 Born & raised in the South Yorkshire mining village of Hoyland Common, Richard Hines remembers sliding down heaps of coal dust, listening out for the colliery siren at the end of shifts, & praying for his father`s safe return. It seemed all too likely that he would follow in his father`s footsteps & end up working in the pits, especially when to his mother`s horror & his own he failed the 11+, so that unlike his older brother Barry, who had passed the exam to grammar school & who seemed to be heading for great things, Richard was left without hope of academic achievement. Crushed by this, & persecuted by the cruelty of his teachers, Richard spent his time in the fields & meadows just beyond the colliery slag heap. One morning, walking in the grounds of a ruined medieval manor, he came across a nest of kestrels. Instantly captivated, he sought out ancient falconry texts from the local library, & pored over the strange & beautiful language there. With just these books, some ingenuity, & his profound respect for the hawk`s indomitable wildness, Richard learned to ”man”, or train, his kestrel, Kes, & in the process grow into the man he would become. Richard & his experiences with kestrels inspired Barry`s classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave. When production began on what would become Ken Loach`s iconic film Kes, Richard found himself training the kestrels that would soar on screen & into cinematic history. No Way But Gentlenesse is a superb, moving memoir of one remarkable boy`s love for a forgotten culture, & his attempt to find salvation in the natural world. ...

The summit of K2. 1st August 2008. An exhausted band of climbers pump their fists into the clear blue sky
- joining the elite who
...

No Way Down: Life & Death on K2 tells of the horrifying & inspiring events that happened on the world’s second highest mountain on August 1st 2008. As an exhausted band of climbers celebrate reaching the summit of K2 beneath a beautiful clear blue sky, far below them their ropes are swept away by the collapse of an ice shelf. Forced to descend into the blackness with no lines, of the thirty who set out, eleven will never make it back. Following the stories of climbers from around the world, No Way Down weaves a tale of human courage, folly, survival & devastating loss. ...

The rags-to-riches story of one of the world`s greatest dancers, from his difficult beginnings living in poverty in the backstreets of Cuba to his astronomical rise to international stardom. In 1980, Carlos Acosta was just another Cuban kid of humble origins, the youngest son in a poor family named after the planter who had owned his great-great-grandfather. With few options & an independent spirit, Carlos spent his days on the streets, dreaming of a career in football. But even at a young age, Carlos had extraordinary talent. At nine, he was skipping school to win break-dancing competitions as the youngest member of a street-gang for whom dance contests were only a step away from violence. When Carlos`s father enrolled him in ballet school, he hoped not only to nuture his son`s talent, but also to curb his wildness. Years of loneliness, conflict & crippling physical effort followed, but today the Havana street-kid is an international star. This magical memoir is about more than Carlos`s rise to stardom, however. It is the story of a childhood where food is scarce but love is abundant, where the soul of Cuba comes alive to influence a dancer`s art. It is also about a man forced to leave behind his homeland & loved ones for a life of self-discipline, displacement & brutal physical hardship. Carlos Acosta makes dance look effortless, but the grace, strength & charm have come a cost
- here, in his own words, is the story of the price he paid.
...

Bob Marley is the unchallenged king of reggae & one of music`s great iconic figures. Rita Marley was not just his wife & the mother of four of his children but his backing singer & friend, life-long companion & soul mate. They met in Trenchtown when he was 19 & she was 18, & she was very much part of his musical career, selling his early recordings from their house in the days before Island Records signed up the Wailers. She shared the hard times & the dangers
- when Bob was wounded in a gunfight before the Peace Concert, Rita was shot in the head & left for dead. Their marriage was not always easy, but Rita was the woman Bob returned to no matter where music & other women might take him, the woman who held him when he died at the age of 35. Today she sees herself as the guardian of his legacy. Full of new insights, No Woman No Cry is a unique biography of Marley by someone who understands what it meant to grow up in poverty in Jamaica, to battle racism & prejudice. It is also a moving & inspiring story of a marriage that survived both poverty & then the strains of global celebrity.` It will surely become the definitive biographical account of the reggae guitarist-singer-songwriter who changed pop music & in the process became a leader to millions` The Times ` Rita Marley is reggae royalty.. . In her own words, this is a revealing insight into Marley`s life & legacy` Daily Mirror
...

Endorsed by Amnesty International. No. No? No! A little boy sets out to deliver a letter, witnessing acts of war on the way. But when he encounters a bully by the post-box, he decides that enough is enough. Almost wordless, but speaking volumes, No! dramatises conflict & its alternatives in a language that is accessible to everyone, young or old: beautiful paintings, executed with profound feeling & an artist`s vision & wisdom. No! is the author`s expression of hope that the playgrounds of the world, big & small, will soon become safer & friendlier for all. ...