Peppuzzo Netherlands

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  • Pepe Carvalho, l'addio (704)
  • Millennio vol. 2
  • By Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
  • Finished on May 15, 2010
    
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  Pepe Carvalho, l'addio

  

  Pepe is old and tired of watching the big show of life, where each person betrays her own character. He toured the world, running away from everything looking like secret agents, revolutionaries, terrorists, mafia-men, whores. But no one of them is what they appear to be. Not even the happy young mo ... (continue)

  Pepe is old and tired of watching the big show of life, where each person betrays her own character. He toured the world, running away from everything looking like secret agents, revolutionaries, terrorists, mafia-men, whores. But no one of them is what they appear to be. Not even the happy young mother of colorless children, is what she should be, but exactly what Carvalho expects her to be.

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  — May 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • De Weduwnaar (26)
  • By Kluun
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  De Weduwnaar

  

  Finally an interesting book these days. No parallel stories in this plot, a sharp language and interesting use of modern technologies and languages. This is the story of a man that loses himself after his wife's premature death. Coming from a respected position of a reach entrepreneur in Amsterdam, ... (continue)

  Finally an interesting book these days. No parallel stories in this plot, a sharp language and interesting use of modern technologies and languages. This is the story of a man that loses himself after his wife's premature death. Coming from a respected position of a reach entrepreneur in Amsterdam, with lovely wife and kid, cheating on his lover with his wife best friend and with some young and attractive trainees, after a period of drugs and wild parties in Ibiza, falls into the arms of the new-age sect; he decides for a long trip in Australia with the only company of his daughter, in the quest for the true self, and gradually becomes background.

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  — Sep 10, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Piece of My Heart (27)
  • By Peter Robinson
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  Piece of My Heart

  

  The idea is to have two unconnected stories develop in parallel; the two stories alternates themselves chapter by chapter. In this way the reader is not confronted with the superficiality of the plot, the ill-built characters, the temporal and spatial mistakes that otherwise would be evident in a si ... (continue)

  The idea is to have two unconnected stories develop in parallel; the two stories alternates themselves chapter by chapter. In this way the reader is not confronted with the superficiality of the plot, the ill-built characters, the temporal and spatial mistakes that otherwise would be evident in a single-story plot; around 3/4 of the book, the stories connect in the writer climax. This technique, apparently the only one thought in modern writer workshop, is actually borrowed from television, namely from soap operas. Reading Peter Robinson's Piece of my Heart is therefore equivalent to watch a couple of hours of a soap opera. With the only advantage that in the reader's head actors tend to act much better than on TV.

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  — Sep 10, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Ham on rye (176)
  • A novel
  • By Charles Bukowski
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  Ham on rye

  

  There are some writers that are absolute. Still we forget them, and we approach our forties becoming a much worse person than when were about thirty. Like Charles Bukowski, the most influential american writer of the last century. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I have been confronted with his auto ... (continue)

  There are some writers that are absolute. Still we forget them, and we approach our forties becoming a much worse person than when were about thirty. Like Charles Bukowski, the most influential american writer of the last century. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I have been confronted with his autobiographical novel Ham on Rye. Chinaski grows, and fights his guts for the right of living his own life.

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  — Aug 14, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Verbroken / druk 1 (12)
  • By Karin Slaughter
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  Verbroken / druk 1

  

  This book has the great merit of being written in a grammatical correct manner; not much more than that, and I am inclined to think that the merit goes to the dutch translator...
  In this book the world is divided between two kind of people: the heroes, good, honest, disciplined, loving, suffering, b ... (continue)

  This book has the great merit of being written in a grammatical correct manner; not much more than that, and I am inclined to think that the merit goes to the dutch translator...
  In this book the world is divided between two kind of people: the heroes, good, honest, disciplined, loving, suffering, but destined to a bright future and true happiness; and the villain, corrupted, alcoholics, addicted, greedy, enjoying themselves in ways we might all be jealous in our deepest dreams we would never share; those will die in pain, by cancer and in solitude, or killed by the heroes. There is even a third category: people in between, they might go wrong or they might redeem, but they will never join True Happiness.
  What a waist of ink, and what a waist of talent. I have read a short story from Karin Slaughter, and it was funny and full of irony. This one is not even worth recycling.

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  — Aug 11, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Nanà (2280)
  • By Émile Zola
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  Nanà

  Nanà.

  In the late 1800, society was sexually repressed. Wifes would copulate only for procreation purposes, and would not find any pleasure in sex, or at least they would pretend so (a very anti-symmetrical pretending compared to nowadays). In such environment, husbands would be ready to everything for a ... (continue)

  In the late 1800, society was sexually repressed. Wifes would copulate only for procreation purposes, and would not find any pleasure in sex, or at least they would pretend so (a very anti-symmetrical pretending compared to nowadays). In such environment, husbands would be ready to everything for a bit of love, and would have to find comfort in love affairs, or worse in prostitutes, singers or actresses. Prostitutes like Nanà, whose sex attract all layers of Parisian society, whose lust and vices dominate above all false morality. Men stand in line for Nanà, burn their money, go to jail for her, kill themselves with knives or fire. They are all hypnotized, captured, possessed by Nanà's beauty and charme. Nanà is their last harbor for love, and their damnation. All for a bit of sex. All for a bit of love. Luckily nowadays society is completely different.

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  — Jul 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

• Maak nooit je bed op

  • Maak nooit je bed op (1)
  • 115 nieuwe wetenschappelijke tips voor het dagelijks leven
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  Maak nooit je bed op

  

  Experiences and experiments, without a theory that binds them into a coherent system, are just a collection of trivia from which we learn nothing. Useless, like this book, collecting 115 results of scientific experiments, but failing in creating a new philosophy, despite the promising title. Relaxin ... (continue)

  Experiences and experiments, without a theory that binds them into a coherent system, are just a collection of trivia from which we learn nothing. Useless, like this book, collecting 115 results of scientific experiments, but failing in creating a new philosophy, despite the promising title. Relaxing and effective for toilet readings, its pages are of the right format for the hygienic ritual that follows those sittings.

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  — Jun 30, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Het vergeten seizoen (2)
  • By Peter Delpeut
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  Het vergeten seizoen

  

  There must be reasons why I am so good; and I am so good in finding them. Like a catholic preacher middle in the 19th century, I find great justifications for my shortcomings and by methodical and rhetorical reasoning I transmute them into circumstances, necessary steps or even better hidden strengt ... (continue)

  There must be reasons why I am so good; and I am so good in finding them. Like a catholic preacher middle in the 19th century, I find great justifications for my shortcomings and by methodical and rhetorical reasoning I transmute them into circumstances, necessary steps or even better hidden strengths.

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  — Apr 23, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Snakes and Earrings (35)
  • By Hitomi Kanehara
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  Snakes and Earrings

  Forked thong

  Lui is building a new ethics, a new set of moral values; a new way-of-living. A philosophy in which work is just a way to make beer taste better, love is an act for strangers, violence is a necessity and the skin is just a temporary canvas for ink dragons, studs pierce thongs with the only goal of f ... (continue)

  Lui is building a new ethics, a new set of moral values; a new way-of-living. A philosophy in which work is just a way to make beer taste better, love is an act for strangers, violence is a necessity and the skin is just a temporary canvas for ink dragons, studs pierce thongs with the only goal of forking them; in this way-of-living sex is liberated and therefore intense; so intense it makes you cry, so definite it makes you want to die; and who can tell a lover from a killer nowadays?

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  — Apr 19, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Tre storie d'amore (785)
  • By Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
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  Tre storie d'amore

  

  In Tre storie d'amore, di Montalban, Pepe Carvalho is confronted with the different shapes of love: an old love, a passionate love, and the absence of love. In all cases, the extreme and pure consequence of love is murder, murders to be solved passively. That's maybe why Pepe prefers cooking to lovi ... (continue)

  In Tre storie d'amore, di Montalban, Pepe Carvalho is confronted with the different shapes of love: an old love, a passionate love, and the absence of love. In all cases, the extreme and pure consequence of love is murder, murders to be solved passively. That's maybe why Pepe prefers cooking to loving, and lighting up his chimney with books.

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  — Jan 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • I peggiori racconti dei fratelli Grim (435)
  • By Luis Sepulveda, Mario Delgado Aparaín
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  I peggiori racconti dei fratelli Grim

  

  Yesterday I did not feel too well - probably I was too tired of an extreme weekend, and I spent my time lying in bed reading. I finished I peggiori racconti dei fratelli Grim, an amazing surrealistic epistolar novel, in which two scholars dispute about the impact of the Grim's brother on South-Ameri ... (continue)

  Yesterday I did not feel too well - probably I was too tired of an extreme weekend, and I spent my time lying in bed reading. I finished I peggiori racconti dei fratelli Grim, an amazing surrealistic epistolar novel, in which two scholars dispute about the impact of the Grim's brother on South-America culture. It's a pearl of humor and imagination, and it is the proof that there is a Chilean literature besides Isabel Allende.

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  — Jan 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Tirza (29)
  • By Arnon Grunberg
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  Tirza

  

  The second novel I have read is Tirza, written by the dutch celebrity Arnon Grunberg. Also this is a book about family life, since there is probably nothing else to write about in The Netherlands. But in this case, despite the literary prices (can you imagine, the guy won a price organized by its ed ... (continue)

  The second novel I have read is Tirza, written by the dutch celebrity Arnon Grunberg. Also this is a book about family life, since there is probably nothing else to write about in The Netherlands. But in this case, despite the literary prices (can you imagine, the guy won a price organized by its editor, twice!), the book is good. There's again a lot of detail, every fact seems to carry with it a deep significance; the story is slow and intense, and everything seems to happen inside the characters, even though there is a lot of things happening outside. A sentence remain impressed in my mind from this book: "sex is humiliation". In the book it has to do with the fact that the main character loved to have is dick licked after some anal sex with his cleaning lady, but it has its impact also outside that context. Tirza is a nice snapshot into family life, or maybe more than that, it is a X-ray picture, an MR-scan - you see everything what's behind the curtain.

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  — Jan 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Neither Here Nor There (278)
  • Travels in Europe
  • By Bill Bryson
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  Neither Here Nor There

  

  To follow his stories Pepe Carvalho often travels, but it is never like the travels of Bill Bryson. A book about travels is something you should never bring with you while travelling, so I did not. Bill tries to follow the pattern of a trip around Europe he did when he was younger. He succedes in fo ... (continue)

  To follow his stories Pepe Carvalho often travels, but it is never like the travels of Bill Bryson. A book about travels is something you should never bring with you while travelling, so I did not. Bill tries to follow the pattern of a trip around Europe he did when he was younger. He succedes in following his impulsiveness, his love for big cities and capitals, his marvellous literary fantasy. The guy is fun, very fun. Sometimes he is so funny that it gets boring. The book is well written and gave me the feeling of what it means being a tourist. Most interesting part was to see how being tourist changed over the years - and reminds me on how being a tourist like Bryson is, is already past tense.

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  — Jan 15, 2010 | Add your feedback

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  • Una città o l'altra (712)
  • Viaggi in Europa
  • By Bill Bryson
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  • La pensione Eva (3614)
  • By Andrea Camilleri
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