Here are 92 books that Vereeniging Fares South fans have personally recommended if you like
Vereeniging Fares South.
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I am an author living in the depths of rural France. I currently write humorous memoirs about our wacky lives here in a rural backwater where we’re surrounded by meadows, forest, and a motley collection of mostly rescued animals. Aside from being a passionate animal lover, I have a special interest in reading accounts of others who travel and those who have relocated to a different country. After a long day’s work on our domaine, there’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa—cat on my lap, dogs in a happy heap—and getting lost in a great memoir. A glass of wine never goes amiss, either.
I adore a well-written memoir, and Victoria’s is a treasure.
The author's accounts of life in Australia are fascinating and illuminating, and the tales involving animals and her grandchildren had me in stitches. It's a delightful read; I can't wait for the next episode.
Life is good. The grandchildren are thriving despite swallowing magnets and sticking crayons up their noses. Joe and Vicky plan a road trip with their dog, Lola. However, after disturbing dingoes, entering zombie zones and breaking the law, they learn life on the road is rarely relaxing. Meanwhile, farmers anxiously watch their fields turn brown as a terrible drought grips Australia. Even worse, bushfire season arrives early, and flames rage across the land. Will love and laughter be enough to keep the Two Old Fools and their family safe from harm? Fans of James Herriott, Gerald Durrell and Bill Bryson…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am an author living in the depths of rural France. I currently write humorous memoirs about our wacky lives here in a rural backwater where we’re surrounded by meadows, forest, and a motley collection of mostly rescued animals. Aside from being a passionate animal lover, I have a special interest in reading accounts of others who travel and those who have relocated to a different country. After a long day’s work on our domaine, there’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa—cat on my lap, dogs in a happy heap—and getting lost in a great memoir. A glass of wine never goes amiss, either.
Having lived in the area, this memoir, set in the Midlands, was such a lovely stroll down memory lane.
Dawn recounts her childhood with warmth, wit, and an authentic ‘Brummie’ voice that shines through the dialogue. Her heartwarming tales of a close-knit family are highlights, which sparkle with gentle humour and nostalgia.
In this evocative childhood memoir, illustrated with colour and monochrome photographs, Dawn reflects on her past after finding herself transported back to the 1960s during her evening commute following the pandemic. With humour and honesty, she relates the remarkable story of how she was almost not born and details her earliest memories of growing up on a council estate in Birmingham. She reminisces about her neighbourhood, school days, recreational activities, food, games, and cherished family memories.Dawn paints a rich tapestry of nostalgia from the 60s and 70s, capturing the special essence of the decades that shaped her future. It is…
I am an author living in the depths of rural France. I currently write humorous memoirs about our wacky lives here in a rural backwater where we’re surrounded by meadows, forest, and a motley collection of mostly rescued animals. Aside from being a passionate animal lover, I have a special interest in reading accounts of others who travel and those who have relocated to a different country. After a long day’s work on our domaine, there’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa—cat on my lap, dogs in a happy heap—and getting lost in a great memoir. A glass of wine never goes amiss, either.
The book is fun, fascinating, and an excellent reference for anyone travelling to Malaga.
I loved the author’s honest approach to sharing her emotions, which added great colour to her writing. It’s a terrific debut memoir by Karen O’Connor, and I look forward to reading about her future travels.
When Karen’s son, Johnny, invited her to tag along on his work trip to Malaga, she jumped at the chance. Little did she know that this cheery break from a long Washington winter would result in an adventure that would awaken her soul in ways she could not anticipate.Follow Karen in her favourite blue jacket as she explores the city, makes new friends and falls deeper in love with Spain.Fans of The Lonely Planet series, Bill Bryson and engaging travel memoirs will thoroughly enjoy this book."Karen O’Connor’s first travel book is a delight. It invites the reader to share her…
I am an author living in the depths of rural France. I currently write humorous memoirs about our wacky lives here in a rural backwater where we’re surrounded by meadows, forest, and a motley collection of mostly rescued animals. Aside from being a passionate animal lover, I have a special interest in reading accounts of others who travel and those who have relocated to a different country. After a long day’s work on our domaine, there’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa—cat on my lap, dogs in a happy heap—and getting lost in a great memoir. A glass of wine never goes amiss, either.
A memoir about a home near ours in France, with humorous tales about gardening? I knew I’d love this book.
I adored the author's characterisations, her reflections on a favourite artist, and the philosophers who touched her soul. These literary musings fit seamlessly with the prose, adding great richness to the book.
This inspiring memoir tells the story of a garden in southwest France, its transformation from a tangled wilderness of brambles and nettles into an idyllic Mediterranean garden, and the lessons learned along the way. The journey begins when two horticultural innocents, Laurette and her French partner Sylvain, leave the big city of Toulouse for life in the country. Carried away by the song of a nightingale and a glass of rosé, they take on a daunting garden challenge. But as they learn to work with nature rather than against it, a different challenge arises. While their wasteland begins to thrive…
I'm an Anglo-Dutch writer living in the Netherlands, and the author of two books. Growing up in England I never thought much about rivers, but in the Netherlands they’re hard to avoid, and I’ve become fascinated by them. These days, when we all work remotely and (when rules allow) usually travel by car, train, or plane rather than boat, it’s easy to think of rivers as just scenic backdrops, rather than anything more important. But the truth is many of our cities wouldn’t exist without the waters which flow through them, and waterways like the Rhine, Thames, and Seine have had a huge influence on the history and culture of the people living alongside them. If you want to understand why somewhere like Rotterdam, London or Paris is the way it is, you could spend the day in a library or museum – but you’d be better off going for a boat ride or swim, poking around under some bridges and talking to the fishermen, boatmen, and kayakers down at the waterline.
This book tells the story of how the people of the Netherlands – the country where I’ve lived for more than a decade, and which I wrote my first book about – have not just managed to survive below sea level, in a land riddled with rivers and canals, but managed to turn their boggy environment to their advantage, becoming grandmasters at building dikes, draining land and constructing water-pumping windmills. The book isn’t a heavy read – the emphasis is on photos, maps, and interesting factoids – but it’s full of insights into everything from how Amsterdam was built to why the Dutch aren’t too worried about climate change. Perfect reading when I’m sitting in my garden in the Dutch countryside, with water on both sides.
All over the world, people learn in school that the Netherlands is a country that lies below sea-level. Dikes, polders, windmills and wooden shoes are well-known icons of this unusual nation, while its sturdy dams and storm surge barriers also enjoy world fame. But how does it all work? How can a country exist under such circumstances and even be prosperous? One would expect the Dutch to panic about climate change but they don’t seem to be; how come? This book will tell you all about it, both in words and photos, striking a balance between developments in the past,…
I am Robert Loewen, the author of The Lioness of Leiden. Imagine that you were born between 1910 and 1925, and the war in Europe is raging. You're a university professor in Berlin who holds meetings at your home to resist the oppressive regime that has imprisoned prominent members of the opposition. Or maybe you are a Jewish man who plans to use your linguistic talent to succeed in a Czechoslovakian business venture, but you just received an order to report for transportation to a place called Auschwitz. Perhaps you are a Dutch university student who joins the resistance when the Third Reich invades your country.
This is a history about three young women in the Netherlands who resisted the occupiers by murdering enemy soldiers.
The story told in Three Ordinary Girlsabout young women who assassinated German soldiers had already been told partially in the memoirs of the survivors.
The story of Hannie Schaft, the ring leader and a student at Amsterdam University at the outset of the war, is now part of the history told to students in Dutch schools.
But author Tim Brady does an admirable job of bringing new perspectives to these heroes by weaving a story that reads like a novel even though the facts are documented in his footnotes.
“The book's teenage protagonists and their bravery will enthrall young adults, who may find themselves inspired to take up their own causes.” —Washington Post
An astonishing World War II story of a trio of fearless female resisters whose youth and innocence belied their extraordinary daring in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. It also made them the underground’s most invaluable commodity.
May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it’s entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
I teach history at The Ohio State University. This project began when I listened in 1976 to a radio broadcast in which Jack Eddy, a solar physicist, speculated that a notable absence of sunspots in the period 1645-1715 contributed to the “Little Ice Age”: the longest and most severe episode of global cooling recorded in the last 12,000 years. The Little Ice Age coincided with a wave of wars and revolution around the Northern Hemisphere, from the overthrow of the Ming dynasty in China to the beheading of Charles I in England. I spent the next 35 years exploring how the connections between natural and human events created a fatal synergy that produced human mortality on a scale seldom seen before – and never since.
I first met Simon Schama in 1963, when he joined me as an undergraduate reading History at Christ’s College Cambridge. Both of us decided to undertake research on the Low Countries, but in an international context: in my case, Spain and the Netherlands between 1550 and 1650; in Simon’s case, France and the Netherlands between 1770 and 1815, leading to his brilliant first book, Patriots and Liberators (a study of what the expansion of Revolutionary France meant for an occupied country.) This led him to analyse the social and cultural history of the country before occupation, using visual as well as written sources to recreate the mental state of a complex society. The embarrassment of Riches tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators. It shows how the Dutch celebrated themselves and how they were…
This is the book that made Simon Schama's reputation when first published in 1987. A historical masterpiece, it is an epic account of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen.
In this brilliant work that moves far beyond the conventions of social or cultural history, Simon Schama investigates the astonishing case of a people's self-invention.
He shows how, in the 17th-century, a modest assortment of farming, fishing and shipping communities, without a shared language, religion or government, transformed themselves into a formidable world empire - the Dutch republic.
To this day, I love stories and books that bring a sense of nostalgia to my heart. As I read now, many of these bring me back to my youth and those early days when I really started to love reading. For the most part, books on this list are seen through the eyes of a middle-grade protagonist—stories of overcoming obstacles and finding family in unexpected places. And characters who overcome mistakes, ultimately lending a hand. I love kindness and empathy in these books, whether spread throughout the story or reaching those qualities by the end, more than anything.
I love this book because the story takes me back to a different era while I learn the customs and traditions of another country. I enjoy the aspects of the story that are not about the winter holiday but the “feeling” around it. The characters are well-written, and I love the ones who display charity and kindness and find ways to lift others, even when the latter have the grit and determination to find their own joy.
Hans Brinker is a classic children's story set in the Netherlands, following the titular character as he aspires to compete in ice skating races and help his family.
At the start, we discover that our young hero is responsible for his entire family's welfare, after his father was injured in an accident. Rather than be downcast by his father's poor condition, Hans is emboldened and determined to turn the family's fortunes around by competing in ice skating races. The stakes become higher as a potential but expensive cure for Hans' stricken father is revealed by the family's doctor.
As far as I can remember, I have been obsessed with death! Maybe it’s because my mom, who died four years ago at the age of 86, was a Holocaust survivor. Anyway, what I’ve noticed is that all kids' stories deal with death. Think, for instance, of how Harry Potter is an orphan. Or how so many characters in fairy tales have a parent who is dead. I think dealing with death – talking about it openly --- helps us live our lives in a more meaningful way. For my own novel, Planet Grief, I did a ton of researcher and befriended an amazing grief counselor named Dawn Cruchet. You can look her up on the web and learn about her too. Dawn taught me that there is no one, correct way to grieve, that grief is a life-changing journey.
One of my favourite books of all time! Not only because the author is Dutch (like me!!). The narrator Kiki is a worrier. She worries most of all about her dad who is a doctor who works in dangerous war zones. This book manages to be funny and sad and beautiful at the same time. Read it!
'It's about something called the odds,' said my mother. 'For instance, the odds that you'll become a millionaire are very, very small. The odds that you'll find a coin in the street are a lot bigger. And it's the same thing with fathers. The odds of having a father are big, and the odds of not having a father are small. So you don't have to worry too much about not having a father."Can you make the odds of something smaller?' I asked. 'Or bigger?' 'Yes,' my mother said. 'Sometimes.'Kiki's father, a doctor, is always putting himself in danger by…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I am the co-author and CEO of The Wonder Weeks. I advise various global players in the field of babies and I'm a sought-after speaker at fairs and in daily exchange with mothers and fathers.
With all this knowledge I know the needs of parents and their children like no other, with my books and apps I stand for power to the parents!
As a Dutch co-author, I highly recommend the books of Miffy, the very known rabbit in the Netherlands and worldwide, who shares his experiences in colourful, child friendly and short books. This copy is about celebrating birthdays. I love the good colorful illustrations and the imagination of Miffy. For children, this is the perfect combination, as a child loves birthdays, presents and especially from grandparents.
Hip hip hooray! It's Miffy's birthday and her friends have all bought her lovely presents. Grandpa and Grandma Bunny give her a very special present.
Award-winning UK poet, Tony Mitton, has worked closely with Dick Bruna's Dutch publisher to create new translations for the classic Miffy stories that are true to the books' original voice, and yet have a contemporary feel to the language that makes them appealing to the modern young audience. The translations beautifully convey the warmth and friendliness of the original Dutch whilst maintaining a style that is inimitably Miffy.
