If you like these posts, you might take a look at our previous trips to France, Italy, Finland and Philippines here. Join us on our arm chair travels!
Welcome Maureen!
Hi there everyone!! My name is Maureen and I’m a Book Blogger on Maureen’s Books. I’m 29 years old, and I life with my husband and baby girl in the Netherlands. Next to being a Book Blogger, I’m a Nurse in a teaching hospital.
Thank you Gayathri for inviting me to share my country with you and your friends here at ElgeeWrites. I think it’s a great idea to share our different countries with each other. Especially since there are so many prejudices out there that just aren’t true. The things I read and hear about The Netherlands, or also sometimes called Holland, for example.
We all wear wooden shoes, ride our bicycles every day, we are all very tall and have used drugs at least once! Well.. Let me help you all out of that dream. I’ve only worn wooden shoes once for a picture when I was little, I haven’t used my bicycle in at least a year and half, I’m only 163 cm (I think that’s about 5 ft 3) and I have never used any sort of drugs.
Here in the Netherland we definitely do have our very own traditions. For one we celebrate Kings Day (here called Koningsdag) every year on April 27th. It’s a national holiday here. On this day we celebrate our King’s birthday (and before him it was called Queens day) with all kinds of parties throughout the country.
Children wake up early to sell stuff on little markets, and there is music and food everywhere. There are also many little book stalls, so for us bookish people it’s also a great day Everyone is dressed in Orange (because the Dutch Royal Family is from the House of Orange-Nassau), there are Dutch flags everywhere and it’s just a very fun day. In fact it’s my favorite holiday next to Christmas. I love it!
Pic Cred: Pinterest
Also a fun fact: every day on Kings Day the King and his family visit a town here in the Netherlands and celebrate the day in that town and its people. It’s also shown on television.
Another sort of tradition here in the Netherlands is football and ice skating. It’s kind of a big thing around here. Especially football, although we haven’t been very good at it lately! Every time there is European Championship or a World Championship we all go a little crazy. Every supermarket is promoting football by making some kind of silly souvenir. And the streets are even a lot quieter when there is a big game playing.
National Cuisine
Here in the Netherlands we eat stuff from every part of the world. Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, French.. you name it and we eat something from that cuisine at least once a month. But we do have some stuff that is really ‘Dutch’.
And my favorite is definitely called stamppot. Stamppot is basically mashed potatoes with some kind of vegetable. Two of my favorite stamppots are ‘Boerenkool’, mashed potatoes with kale, and ‘andijviestamppot, mashed potatoes with endive. I can eat that every single day. Unfortunately my husband doesn’t like it so much, so I don’t eat it much.
Pic cred: valess.nl
Another really dutch thing are Bitterballen. And boy are they taste. Bitterballen are deep fried crispy meatballs. And I don’t think they are really healthy for your, so I don’t eat them a lot. But during summer I love eating Bitterballen while drinking a glass of wine on a nice terrace. Yummy.
Although we sure have many restaurants, and we have the major fast food joints like McDonalds and KFC, I rarely eat there. I mostly cook dinner at home every day. It’s much cheaper, I enjoy cooking and eating out is more special if you don’t do it a lot, I think.
A Typical Day in the Netherlands
Pic cred: thejeurnalist
How does a typical day in the Netherlands look? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is rainy and cold. Although the weather has gotten warmer these last view years, it still rains a lot here, and it doesn’t get very warm. A rain coat is definitely not a luxury around here.
Another thing that came to mind was traffic jams. We are a small country, but we have a lot of citizens. So the roads are often very busy, and there are a lot of traffic jams. Unfortunately traffic jams are a daily hassle for me. I go to work by car every day, and I stand in a traffic jam almost every single day. Blegh..
Dutch Stereotypes
Like I said before, there are many stereotypes about Dutch people. It’s been said that we Dutch people are high on drugs a lot, since soft drug is legalized here. Well, although I would be able to get marihuana easily around here, I have never used it and don’t plan on using it ever. I honestly don’t think any of my friends and family use drugs regularly.
Pic: memegenerator
I think the fact it’s legal here, makes it uninteresting for a lot of people. So it’s nothing big here. The Dutch ‘drugs’ stereotype is used a lot in movies and tv series and I really hate that. Just as with the red light district in Amsterdam. Come on.. It’s one street that doesn’t mean we have prostitutes everywhere!! I also don’t think every American is like Trump. Just don’t judge! 🙂
Another stereotype about us is that we are ‘cheap’ around here. Well, I guess that’s probably true. If we can get something for free we’ll get it. Supermarkets and stores advertise with sales almost all the time and giving tips to waiters and mailmen etc. isn’t something that’s common here.
The last stereotype I hear a lot about Dutch people is that we are direct. And that one is also true I think. We don’t beat around the bush and we aren’t very hysterical people. For example when I see people going crazy wild about a famous person on TV, I know for sure it’s not here. They are just people like us right? And the funny meme here also proves it.. And yes, this is actually true!!
Dutch Books
I have been reading books in English from when I was twelve years old. So I honestly don’t know much about Dutch authors and books. Obviously I hear stuff about Dutch Authors and books on TV and on the radio but I haven’t read many. I have read some Dutch children’s books while growing up, and I still own them.
My favorite Dutch Childrens books are written by Carrie Slee. Her books are mostly based on teens and a lot of her books are made into movies. I also loved the books by Paul van Loon. His books are more ‘scary’ and I adored them growing up.
Our National Language
Here in the Netherlands we speak Dutch, or as we call it Nederlands. Dutch, not Deutsch!! Deutsch is the national language of Germany. And although apparently our languages are very much alike.. I can understand it a little but definitely can’t speak it. Danish is also a little like Dutch. Some words are the same, but I also can’t speak a word Danish.
Pic: africanahgirl
There are a lot of words in Dutch that are almost the same in English. For example:
Tomato = Tomaat
Apple = Appel
Pear = Peer
Banana = Banaan
And, I had to look this one up, we have one word that has no translation in English. It’s ‘gezellig’, And it’s a word we use a lot. This is what’s being said about our word ‘gezellig’:
Situations can begezellig, as can people and places – it’s an adjective, the noun beinggezelligheid. If something isgezellig, it is familiar, warm, friendly, cozy, and jovial. For example, enjoying a cozy dinner with old-friends in one of your favorite, quaint, little restaurants with some tasty food and wine isgezellig; being in a meeting at work is notgezellig!
Some important Dutch words and sentences for us bookish people are:
Bookstore = Boekenwinkel
Reading = Lezen
Where can I find the nearest Bookstore? = Waar kan ik de dichtstbijzijnde boekenwinkel vinden?
Do you sell “…” = Verkoopt u ook “..”
But one thing we Dutch people are mostly very good at is speaking English. Not everyone speaks or writes it fluently but most people can speak English pretty well. So if you come to visit and don’t speak any Dutch? No worries, we can understand you.
And that’s probably in short what I can tell you about our small country of The Netherlands. Who knows maybe some of you get to visit our pretty little country one day?! And to end things in Dutch:
‘Dankjewel Gayathri voor deze leuke kans.’(Thank you, Gayathri for this fun opportunity.)
Thank you Maureen!
Thanks Maureen for your time and sharing with us a glimpse of your Dutch life. You can contact here through her blog and social accounts.
That brings us to the end of our travel, the Netherland edition. I will meet you next month with another country with its books, authors and bloggers and whatever I can think of.
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Have you ever been Netherlands? How do the Dutch stereotypes fare? Do you have any friends in the country? Let us talk.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is one of those books that have been on my TBR for a long time and when Evalinah and Simant asked me for a buddy read I just jumped at the chance. So shall we get on with it?
Plot Summary of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Eleanor Oliphant is a twenty nine year old blunt and has not mastered the social etiquette yet. She has been living alone for a long time and barely speaks to people. She has had a difficult relationship with her mother, her only relative always but now she sees a light in the form of a guy, a musician apparently.
She has it all planned. All she had to meet him, he will realize she is the one for him, they will fall in love and a happily ever after was destined. But she was not ready to bump into Raymond, a office coworker nor meeting his mother.
What happened in her past that affected her so much? How did Raymond’s presence alter her path? You will have to read Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine to know more.
Book review of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
I am nowhere like Eleanor in real life but somehow I could relate to her thoughts. And that is where the author shines. She has written a character who is full of flaws and is annoying, unlikable, yet believable and relatable.
Things that worked for me
I think the strength of the book was its well developed characters.
I liked how the tension and suspense about Eleanor’s past was maintained till the end.
There are lots of funny moments that had me chuckling loud in the public.
Things that didn’t work for me
The plot is character driven so if you are waiting for that plot twist, it isn’t coming.
As part of our buddy-reading, Evalinah, Simant and I exchanged some questions for each of us to answer. You can hop to their blogs and check out their answers.
Evalinah’s questions
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine has some bigger than life concepts and ideas. What’s the biggest lesson you took away from it? Has it affected how you view things in life at least a little bit?
I loved how Eleanor was a go-getter and was never afraid to push her limits. Be it the makeover or the bikini wax, she was ready to try them because she needed to. She is a strong woman not because of her circumstances but despite them.
Since Eleanor is a very unreliable narrator, the first things we hear about Raymond are somewhat repulsive because she sees him very negatively at first. But then we indirectly learn that he basically has a heart of gold. What was your “reader’s journey” in regards to Raymond? Did you start seeing him as a “book boyfriend” eventually, or..?
Raymond reminded me of Roy from the IT crowd, right from the beginning. I loved how he wasn’t portrayed as just another guy and we all fell in love with him directly.
What did you think of the writing style? Namely, the way we were always given Eleanor’s sometimes ridiculous opinions first, and only then learned the truth indirectly through actual events? What do you think this gave to the story, especially when it comes to how we see Eleanor and her changes?
I remember us updating each other (while reading) about the mystery about the ‘past’. She had us hooked right where we wanted and even though we were able to kinda predict we stuck through it to see how it panned out. And I think that is where the author won as a writer.
Eleanor is an unlikable character in the beginning. It’s not that we generally meet such people in daily life. She is one of the oddest characters I’ve ever read. But as the story progresses, we start connecting with her and understanding her better.
Why do you think it is so? Why we felt connected to her though we don’t relate to her on so many levels? Or if you do resemble her in some way, share your experience may be?
I think at some level we all relate to her because she says aloud things that we all think. I think those rough edges helped Eleanor win us over.
Throughout the book, there is a mystery about Eleanor’s mother. Off course, in the end, the mystery is resolved. Do you think this twist was necessary for the overall growth of the story? The ending we expected for Eleanor arrives eventually, so don’t you think this mystery angle was tiresome to stretch out till the very end?
I kinda guessed what it have been (more or less) but I think without that mystery I don’t think I would have enjoyed the book as much.
It made us (the reader) keep thinking about it even though Eleanor was not ready to deal with it yet. I Like I said before, this book is not about the plot twist, it is more about the characters.
This novel is a mix of humour and a darker plot. There were some thought-provoking sections, like Eleanor’s relationship with money. She was always highly conscious about how much she spends and is not willing to pay for social occasions etc. But since she had no one else to take care, I think it made sense that she was keen on safeguarding her personal finances.
What do you think about this? Also, do you think Raymond’s introduction in her life changed her views on lots of things?
I think Raymond opened up Eleanor to a whole lot of things and emotions that she didn’t understand earlier. She obviously didn’t have a normal childhood nor adult life, and she definitely needed someone to guide her through these social etiquette.
Bottom-line
As someone who avoids series, I rarely say this but I wish there was a sequel coming up to Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. I have not got enough of Eleanor Oliphant.
Have you read Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine one before? If so what do you think of it? Do you like reading about characters with a traumatic past? Let us talk.
I have been playing a lot of catching up this week around the house after a hectic last week and being obsessed about all the superhero movies on TV.
The winter is fleeting around this part of the world, Dubai precisely, which means the weather is being weird.
I thought we are ready for spring but then came the rain for a day, then the cold is back and it has been so foggy for the past two days. We even had the hail in some parts.
The Dubai Frame looks weird right?
And last morning we saw the sun again. I have no idea how it is going to be today. Unlike many people, I love the gloomy and dark weather for some reason.
Here are a few pictures from different parts of Dubai, that my friends shared with me during this week.
I am sure they would be okay with me sharing them here, don’t worry.
What I read this week:
I had the ultimate book worm problem this week – I couldn’t choose what to read next and I spent about two-three days struggling. But then the ClassicNChristie run by Fanna and Sim helped me choose, still I feel guilty for wasting those hours. Maybe I should come up with a better system to handle my TBR?
And I stayed late last night to finish Agatha Christie’s The Secret Chimneys. I am still reading the Persuasion by Jane Austen, from last week.
My last week was filled with a lot of superhero entertainment.
To start with, I finally watched the Captain Marvel and I am kinda feeling meh about it. Maybe it was the high expectations I had or was it just ‘the same wine in a different bottle’ situation?
Did anyone else feel that? Anyway the next on my superhero watch-list is Avengers: Endgame and I am excited already.
During the week I also watched The Punisher Season 2 and The Umbrella Academy. Unsurprisingly I loved them both. Didn’t I say I love Superhero stuff?
I know that is a lot of Netflix to watch in a week right?
Well, I did it anyway.
On my blog
After a long while I posted according to my blog schedule and if you had missed any of the post here is a quick recap for you.
Don’t you hate it when you forget important dates? Then you will love this post with a huge list of literary celebrations for the year by Vidya from Lady in Read Writes .
Welcome to the second week on Netherlands’ edition of the Flyaway Friday! Are you ready to fly off to the Land of Tulips? We even gave you a travel guide to Netherland last week. Do not forget to check it out!
Books That Will Take You To Netherlands
You do know how we travel to a country without passport nor the hassle of the crowd, via the cheapest mode of travel – books. So this week let me talk about books that are set in Netherlands. Let us get on with it, shall we?
The story is told in the first person by Griet, who is hired as a maid by the master painter Vermeer’s family in Delft. She joins the chaotic family with too many children, an oblivious wife and a husband who doesn’t care about the finance of the family. Griet has fend off the advances of a rich patron, an infatuated young man and fight off the dream of being a wife of the painter.
What can you expect:
This fictionalized account of the story behind the famous painting also acts as a great social commentary!
Set in the Seventeenth Century, eighteen year old Nella arrives in Amsterdam as the wife of Johannes Brandt, who is kind but distant to her and leaves her at the mercy of her sharp tongued sister. Johannes gifts a miniature sized replica of their household and it falls upon Nella to furnish her gift with the help of a miniaturist, whose creations mirrors its real life counterparts. How does this change their lives once and for all?
What can you expect:
A suspense filled story of love and obsession that you can’t put down till the end.
Two brothers and their wives meet in a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam. Behind their apparent polite small talks, they need to discuss matters of grave importance. Their sons have committed something terrible and illegal and they have to decide how it is to be handled. By the time their dinner comes to an end, their trivial facade is broken. Where does all these leave the ‘happy families’ and ‘blood is thicker than water’?
What can you expect:
A mind blowing thriller that spans over a dinner which talks about politics, mental health and other uncomfortable dinner table conversations.
A single mother, a middle aged couple and 50 something male all heading to Amsterdam for the weekend are united by their misery regarding a close family member. They arrive at the city hoping for a change in their lives and does the city offer them a recourse?
What can you expect:
This slow character oriented fiction explores the complexities of love and relationship.
This classic book captures the poignant story of a young girl from the German occupied Amsterdam. She captures the happenings during the war, especially to the Jews in the form of diary entries between 1942-44 while hiding from the Germans in an attic.
What can you expect:
Despite the hard times set in the book, it is surprisingly full of life and spirit making it a must read!
Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a successful Parisian barrister, has come to recognize the deep-seated hypocrisy of his existence. His epigrammatic and, above all, discomforting monologue gradually saps, then undermines, the reader’s own complacency. (From Goodreads)
That is all for now, folks. I will meet you all soon with a guest blogger next week on the Netherlands edition of the Flyaway Friday. Also if you have any question for our Dutch blogger about Netherlands or their culture, do drop them in the comments.
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Have you read any of these books? Do you know any other book set in Netherlands that is not listed here? What are the stereotypes and facts that you have read about the country that you have heard of? Let us talk.
As an indie author it is critical to choose the best cover for your book. This we have Rob discussing about this topic with us.
Say hello to Rob!
Rob Keeley was born in Wirral, Merseyside, UK. Writing his first story aged seven, his first short play aged eleven and first being published at fifteen, he wrote for several magazines before his first book for children, The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories, was published in 2011.
He has since written two more collections of children’s stories, one of which, The Dinner Club and Other Stories, was longlisted for the International Rubery Book Award. He has now published all five novels in his Spirits series, the first of which, Childish Spirits, gained him a Distinction for his MA in Creative Writing before being longlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award and nominated for the People’s Book Prize in 2015.
He has recently studied Screenwriting and Filmmaking, has been a judge for the IGGY and Litro Young Writers’ Prize and is a Patron of the Children’s Media Foundation. His books have been used in schools, libraries and at literary festivals and he is in demand for his author workshops, which one teacher even described as “inspirational”!
Let’s get on with it shall we?
“Never judge a book by its cover”. That has to be up there with “The camera never lies” as one of those old adages that doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. Everyone judges a book by its cover, metaphorically and in the literal (and literary) sense.
When readers shop for books, whether in bricks and mortar bookshops or online, the first thing that catches the eye is the front cover. Even if it’s a book or series title they know, they’ll be relying on the cover to entice them, to draw them in, to promise a thrilling reading journey, destination unknown.
And if you need proof, look at those empty boxes on websites where the cover isn’t available yet or hasn’t yet been uploaded. How bland and uninviting do those book entries look? Which is why it’s so important for every author, and especially the indie author in creative control of their book, to get the cover right.
It’s not easy, for the indie author. We can be completely on our own, uploading our books directly to the Internet, with only limited numbers of templates or fonts at our disposal. Even those of us who work with a designer or an indie publishing company – and there are some brilliant, talented ones out there – can’t necessarily afford (or access) an illustrator and have to work with what software options are available.
Of all my books for children, only my picture book My Favourite People has so far had the luxury of an illustrator. My novels and short story collections all made use of stock photos from the Net, which have to be bought and licensed by the author or by the designer acting on their behalf. And finding the right picture to illustrate your work isn’t always easy.
I discovered this with The Dinner Club and Other Stories, when I spent a whole afternoon looking at stock photos of fish and chips, in order to find one that reflected a child’s home dinner with his grandmother. And what did everyone, but everyone (even the judges who longlisted it for an award!) later say to me? It looks like a cookbook! Young readers thought otherwise, however – as will be seen below.
So we have to work within our budgets, and with whatever we can get. But perhaps this forces us to be all the more creative. It can even feed back into the text of our books. With The (Fairly) Magic Show I changed the card found by a child in the title story from the King of Clubs to the King of Spades, simply because we’d found a brilliant photo of a pile of cards with this on top.
Sometimes a talented designer can change an ordinary stock photo into something magical and memorable. The graveyard of The Spirit of London became this, simply by adding a sunlight effect. On High Spirits, the one that won the award by the way, we changed a stock Grim Reaper hooded spirit into the Doppelganger of the book simply by adding some smoke and a few energy beams to reflect the climax of the novel.
The imagination is the only barrier to being creative with what we have. Ask any child who builds entire worlds from building bricks or cardboard boxes. And in my case, they’re my readers.
With all communication, the fundamental question to ask yourself is: who is my target audience? And going on from that, what do they want to see, read or hear? With my novels and short stories, I always visualise the intelligent 9-12 year old, reading a book at school or home, or having it read to them, wanting to be informed, inspired, but above all, entertained!
And therefore, the cover has to reflect this, being as colourful, exciting and intriguing as possible. It’s not a bad ground rule for novels for adults, either. The image should complement the title and reinforce it, while both perhaps pose questions that the reader will want answered. Anything and everything to make them want to read.
Sometimes the meaning of the cover and its image won’t become clear until the book is read – as with the ruined world on the cover of The Sword of the Spirit, or the door on The Alien in the Garage. And an added complication these days is that the cover has to be easily adaptable to different formats – paperback, ebook or audiobook. Childish Spirits, the first Spirits novel, is currently being recorded as an audiobook, which has meant reformatting its cover from portrait to square – the shape traditionally used for CDs.
As we’ve seen, we can start with the everyday and make something extraordinary out of it. Sometimes the reaction from the young reader can surprise even the author. The Dinner Club, following its “cookbook” criticisms, went on to inspire reluctant readers I worked with at one school to create their own Dinner Club, with the help of their teachers, in which they were granted an early lunch, ate fish and chips and discussed books and their writing. A cover image did that. Not even the book – its cover. This shows the importance of getting the cover right and tailoring it to its target audience.
Children’s authors should also remember that it isn’t necessarily about doing a “wacky” or “kiddie” cover. I’ve had criticisms – from adults, always from adults – that my covers look “too grown up”. Childish Spirits was one such novel, with its spooky abandoned nursery and ghostly portrait, yet in one school workshop a group of children solemnly claimed they could see extra ghosts in the doorway and next to the curtain. (Have a look. Can you?)
None of them seemed to think that this book wasn’t for them. And all of them were engaged and stimulated as readers by what they saw. No one ever said that children’s books were just for children, either. It’s worth remembering that Harry Potter was published with children’s and adult covers – and that it’s adults who are frequently the buyers of children’s literature.
How do we design a good cover?
I’m sure that whole books could be devoted to this alone, but here are a few pointers I’ve picked up along the way:
Keep your target audience in mind constantly. What do they want to see – and read?
Basic background colour is important. You know your text better than anyone – what “colour” is it? A dark fantasy story could call for black. A light-hearted romance might benefit from white. White can also be sinister – especially if some blood appears. Children are attracted by bright colours. And so on.
Choose the best possible image from the best source available on your budget. It should be something that captures the essence of your story and/or characters, perhaps obviously, perhaps less so until the book is read.
Choose a font that reflects the style of your story, its title and what your audience wants to see. A computerised, businesslike font might look good on a business studies book but less so on your middle-grade fantasy novel.
Lay everything out clearly, attractively and don’t clutter your front cover.
If you have review quotes from previous books, or an advance review for this one, try and get at least one quote on the cover, if this can be done comfortably without cluttering. Give the source, and make it clear which book it refers to – e.g. “On High Spirits:”. And of course, make sure you’re authorised to reproduce this material! Check with the reviewer if there’s any doubt. Reviews might show up better on printed covers than electronic-only. And if you can’t fit a review on the printed front cover – there’s always the back!
The finished front cover should ideally be adaptable to different formats and media. You might get the chance at paperback, ebook and audiobook – as I now have. A good designer can advise you here.
So, a suitably intriguing and attention-grabbing cover can engage the reader, young or old. It simply has to be right for the story, for the characters, and above all, for your audience. And once you get them past the cover? Then you, as the author, can work your magic.
If you have something to add to Rob’s story, drop a comment here or send him a word of thanks on the social media. Both of us would love that.Also, if you are interested in writing a guest post for the independent publishing community, write to me right away. I am still accepting guest post submissions.
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As a reader, what kinda covers put you off a book? As an author, what are the things that you look out when you chose your book cover? Tell us about your experience with choosing your book covers. Let us talk.
