[PDF] Amsterdam Stories eBook

Author : Nescio
Publisher : New York Review of Books
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 28,36 MB
Release : 2012-03-20
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1590175077

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No one has written more feelingly and more beautifully than Nescio about the madness and sadness, courage and vulnerability of youth: its big plans and vague longings, not to mention the binges, crashes, and marathon walks and talks. No one, for that matter, has written with such pristine clarity about the radiating canals of Amsterdam and the cloud-swept landscape of the Netherlands. Who was Nescio? Nescio—Latin for “I don’t know”—was the pen name of J.H.F. Grönloh, the highly successful director of the Holland–Bombay Trading Company and a father of four—someone who knew more than enough about respectable maturity. Only in his spare time and under the cover of a pseudonym, as if commemorating a lost self, did he let himself go, producing over the course of his lifetime a handful of utterly original stories that contain some of the most luminous pages in modern literature. This is the first English translation of Nescio’s stories.

Author : Maxim D. Shrayer
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 15,4 MB
Release : 2009-09-08
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0815651058

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Whether set in Maxim D. Shrayer’s native Russia or in North America and Western Europe, the eight stories in this collection explore emotionally intricate relationships that cross traditional boundaries of ethnicity, religion, and culture. Tracing the lives, obsessions, and aspirations of Jewish-Russian immigrants, these poignant, humorous, and tender stories create an expansive portrait of individuals struggling to come to terms with ghosts of their European pasts while simultaneously seeking to build new lives in their American present. The title story follows Jake Glaz, a young Jewish man apprehensive about marrying a Catholic woman. After realizing Erin will not convert, Jake leaves the United States to spend Yom Kippur in Amsterdam, "a beautiful place for a Jew to atone." In "Sonetchka" a literary scholar and his former girlfriend from Moscow reunite in her suburban Connecticut apartment. As they reminisce about their Soviet youth and quietly admire each other’s professional successes, both wrestle with the curious mix of prosperity, loneliness, and insecurity that defines their lives in the United States. Yom Kippur in Amsterdam takes the immigrant narrative into the twenty-first century. Emerging from the traditions of Isaac Babel, Vladimir Nabokov, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shrayer’s vibrant literary voice significantly contributes to the evolution of Jewish writing in America.

Author : Steven Amsterdam
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 41,10 MB
Release : 2010-02-02
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0307378918

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Michael Williams, in Melbourne’s The Age, wrote of this award-winning, dazzling debut collection, “By turns horrific and beautiful . . . Humanity at its most fractured and desolate . . . Often moving, frequently surprising, even blackly funny . . . Things We Didn’t See Coming is terrific.” This is just one of the many rave reviews that appeared on the Australian publication of these nine connected stories set in a not-too-distant dystopian future in a landscape at once utterly fantastic and disturbingly familiar. Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, the stories follow the narrator over three decades as he tries to survive in a world that is becoming increasingly savage as cataclysmic events unfold one after another. In the first story, “What We Know Now”—set in the eve of the millennium, when the world as we know it is still recognizable—we meet the then-nine-year-old narrator fleeing the city with his parents, just ahead of a Y2K breakdown. The remaining stories capture the strange—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny—circumstances he encounters in the no-longer-simple act of survival; trying to protect squatters against floods in a place where the rain never stops, being harassed (and possibly infected) by a man sick with a virulent flu, enduring a job interview with an unstable assessor who has access to all his thoughts, taking the gravely ill on adventure tours. But we see in each story that, despite the violence and brutality of his days, the narrator retains a hold on his essential humanity—and humor. Things We Didn’t See Coming is haunting, restrained, and beautifully crafted—a stunning debut.

Author : Pete Jordan
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 50,20 MB
Release : 2013-04-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0062100645

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Pete Jordan, author of the wildly popular Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States, is back with a memoir that tells the story of his love affair with Amsterdam, the city of bikes, all the while unfolding an unknown history of the city's cycling, from the craze of the 1890s, through the Nazi occupation, to the bike-centric culture adored by the world today Pete never planned to stay long in Amsterdam, just a semester. But he quickly falls in love with the city and soon his wife, Amy Joy, joins him. Together they explore every inch of their new home on two wheels, their rides a respite from the struggles that come with starting a new life in a new country. Weaving together personal anecdotes and details of the role that cycling has played throughout Dutch history, Pete Jordan’s In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist is a poignant and entertaining read.

Author : Ian Christie
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 10,57 MB
Release : 2018
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9789048537082

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Stories are perceived as central to modern life. Not only in narrative entertainment media, such as television, cinema, theater, but also in social media. Telling/having "a story" is widely deemed essential, in business as well as in social life. Does this mark an intensification of what has always been part of human cultures; or has the realm of "story" expanded to dominate twenty-first century discourse? Addressing stories is an obvious priority for the Key Debates series, and Volume 7, edited by Ian Christie and Annie van den Oever, identifies new phenomena in this field -- complex narration, puzzle films, transmedia storytelling -- as well as new approaches to understanding these, within narratology and bio-cultural studies. Chapters on such extended television series as Twin Peaks, Game of Thrones and Dickensian explore distinctively new forms of screen storytelling in the digital age.With contributions by Vincent Amiel, Jan Baetens, Dominique Chateau, Ian Christie, John Ellis, Miklós Kiss, Eric de Kuyper, Sandra Laugier, Luke McKernan, José Moure, Roger Odin, Annie van den Oever, Melanie Schiller, Steven Willemsen, Robert Ziegler.

Author : Simon Hanselmann
Publisher : Fantagraphics Books
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 44,3 MB
Release : 2016-04-20
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN : 160699879X

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Megg the witch, Mogg the cat, their friend Owl, and Werewolf Jones struggle unsuccessfully with their depression, drug use, sexuality, poverty, lack of ambition, and their complex feelings about each other. It’s a laff riot! Megg and Mogg decide to take a trip to Amsterdam for some quality couple time, although the trip gets off to a rocky start when they forget their antidepressants. They need Owl to come and help them save their relationship. But why does he have a suitcase full of glass dildos? And what will they do when they realize that the housesitting Werewolf Jones has turned their apartment into a “f#@k zone”? Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam collects all of Simon Hanselmann’s contributions to Vice.com, the Ignatz Award-nominated short story “St. Owl’s Bay,” and other surprises that will add additional color and background for fans of Megahex.

Author : Shannon Jones
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 46,37 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Calico cats
ISBN : 9780999066195

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"Travel lovers buckle up and get ready to explore in KeeKee's Big Adventures in London, the 5th picture book in the award-winning KeeKee's Big Adventures series. Join KeeKee, the globe-trotting calico kitty, on her latest brilliant adventures in London. Along with her friend Willamb Sheepspeare, she'll whisk readers through the majesty of England's capital city—from Big Ben to Buckingham Palace to a proper English tea. (Pass the scones, please!) Explorers big and small will have a jolly good time trying out fun British expressions, peeking into royal culture, and navigating London's beautiful streets on a double-decker bus. In the back of this brightly illustrated book, you'll find a kid-friendly guide map of London, a glossary of British terms, and more details on KeeKee's favorite places. It's the perfect getaway for kids and families who love travel, adventure and exploring the world around them. Keep your eyes peeled for KeeKee's colorful hot air balloon."--

Author : Nicolas Freeling
Publisher : Harlequin
Page : 211 pages
File Size : 25,90 MB
Release : 2020-09-08
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0369701127

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In this classic mystery, a Dutch police detective investigates a woman’s murder with assistance from the man accused of killing her. A woman, Elsa, is brutally murdered in her Amsterdam apartment. Her ex-lover, Martin, is seen outside the building around the time of the crime. The witness who saw him? A policeman. It looks like a straightforward case—but police inspector Van der Valk is not convinced. Despite all the evidence—and the fact that Martin originally denied he was at the apartment—he believes Martin is not guilty of murder. Instead of charging him, Van der Valk takes him on a tour: a tour of the investigation, a tour of Martin’s own past and a tour into the darkly obsessive world of Elsa . . . NOW A LIMITED SERIES ON MASTERPIECE PBS Praise for Nicolas Freeling and Van der Valk “Freeling’s Inspector Van der Valk is less rugged than Rebus, less parsonical than Dalgliesh, more Morse than Frost, and more Maigret than any of them. Marvelous.” —Anita Brookner “[Freeling] has given the detective story new dimensions much as John Le Carré has done for the spy novel.” —Newsweek

Author : Russell Shorto
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 21,35 MB
Release : 2005-04-12
Category : History
ISBN : 1400096332

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In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history. "Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

Author : Russell Shorto
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 33,18 MB
Release : 2013-10-22
Category : History
ISBN : 0385534582

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An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.