Next week, we'll find out which book will win the prestiguous Best Groninger Book award. My book club decides who will get the Audience Award.
Next week, we will find out who will win the Beste Groninger Boek Award. It is a prize that is awarded each year by Noordwoord, a foundation that supports literature from the North of the Netherlands. In order to be nominated for this award, a book should be about the province of Groningen or its author should have close ties with it. Five books have been nominated, and this year our book club decides who will win the audience award. Want to know which books were nominated? Read on!
I never really liked being part of a book club, but now I have joined two of them and give lectures for a third. That means that I have to talk about the books I read and don’t keep my ideas and opinions to myself (or my admittedly not too impressive amount of people who read my blog) anymore. Instead, we discuss the books and that occasionally leads to new perspectives and theories. When we shared our views on the books from Groningen, I noticed that many of us changed our opinions because we talked about these books so thoroughly – which that brings us to the nominated books:
The Boy who Loved the World by Tjibbe Veltkamp. This is the only book which I wrote a blog post about. It is about Adem (the Dutch word for breath), a possible child, which means that his parents have met and might have a child together. However, they end up fighting, which diminishes Adem’s chances of ever becoming reality. He then sets out to bring his parents together. It’s a children’s book which can also be enjoyed by adults and shows us how the world is filled with wonder and love.
Als, dan (If, Then) by Janneke de Bijl. The subtitle A Logical Novel shows that it will deal with philosophical issues. De Bijl’s debut novel is about Eefje, a student of philosophy, who slowly feels her grip on the world loosen. She decides never to let her feelings get the upper hand of her and look at the world from a purely rational perspective. Things don’t necessarily end well, but thankfully the author has a great sense of humour, for I often laughed out loud while reading this book.
Levende legende, n Grunneger Odyssee by Ingeborg Nienhuis. This book about talented musician Willem Hartsema is written completely in the local dialect, which makes it quite hard to read at times. However, since this novella is also the recent history of the province of Groningen, it definitely makes sense. Also, apparently she is a teacher in her daily life, which means that teachers can have a life outside of their demanding jobs.
Mijn dochter draagt een steen (My Daughter Carries a Stone)by Lilian Zielstra. A collection of poetry. The one question I kept asking myself, and which that night’s chair was struggling with as well, was how on earth one should talk about poetry. Turns out it was quite easy: we looked at the poetic qualities, the order, the meaning and our opinions about them.
Het Amazonedagboek (The Amazon Diaries) by Elzo Smid. We haven’t discussed this novella yet. In two days we’ll talk about this book about Anton Smelt, who is sent to Peru in order to find out how the mysterious Brazil nut reproduces. He encounters tribes, corruption, love, and possibly even the solution to the riddle he was sent out to solve.
Right. That’s it. I now realise that I only described what the books are about, instead of going into detail about what we discussed, what we thought about the books and how we laughed. It such a fun group, and I always look forward to our next meeting. Sometimes we talked about last year’s books and winner, and sometimes we compared this year’s books to last year’s winner. In two days’ time, we’ll know who will win the coveted Audience Award. I have not made up my mind yet, so I can’t wait to find out which book will win! I’ll keep you posted!
Have you read any of these books? Do you think local books deserve as much attention as bestsellers? Are you part of a book club, too? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
