Summer Recommendations

The summer holidays are perfect for big books and biographies. The latter tend to be big anyway, because lives are long – especially when you’re lonely, to quote one of my favourite bands. If you’re looking for a great example of contemporary biography about a fascinating historical figure, try Florette Dijkstra’s De sprong in het licht. It tells the life story of androgynous British artist Marlow Moss (1889-1958), who inspired the double line motif in Piet Mondrian’s famous grid paintings, but never received the same acclaim. It’s an exciting story to read, as Dijkstra deviates from conventional biography by focusing on her own pursuit of archival material and neglected art works. The book’s currently only available in Dutch, but it’s beautifully illustrated, as befits its subject.

Dennis Kersten

This is a documentary series about a (growing) group of Dutch people who are filled with such strong distrust towards society, authorities, the government, that they decide to emigrate to Paraguay to live a ‘free’ life. The series follows a diverse group of people, some of whom have become known to the public during the Covid-crisis, many of whom share (extreme) nationalist views and their discourse is steeped in conspiratorial thinking. It’s a fascinating series that gives deeper insights into this group which is normally not very open to the media, and it follows them in a personal and nuanced way but still makes all the contradictions in their world-views obvious. One of the most striking scenes for me personally was a newly emigrated Dutch immigrant woman in Paraguay searching for land to build a her house for her new life of happiness in free Paraguay, while complaining to the real estate agent that one of the reasons why she left Holland was because in the Netherlands, the immigrants are taking all of the housing, so locals like her own daughter cannot find a place to live anymore.

Melanie Schiller

Een tip voor iedereen die houdt van rivieren, of ervan denkt te kunnen houden, van een auteur die zo levendig schrijft als de rivieren waar het boek over gaat, ervan uitgaande dat rivieren inderdaad schrijven. Anders dan de titel doet vermoeden, is het filosofische gehalte beperkt; het boek draait om de levens van rivieren in verschillende delen van de wereld, wat als bijkomstig voordeel heeft dat je zelf niet meer op reis hoeft. Het boek is overduidelijk uit liefde geschreven, dus je mag het lezen waar, wanneer, hoe en zoveel je wil. 

Tom Idema

I accidentally stumbled upon this series a few months ago and was intrigued to learn that it was written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, whose films (e.g., Festen, Jagten, and Druk) I often return to. The series portrays a not-so-distant future in which rising sea levels force the Danish government to evacuate the country. What follows is a fascinating reversal of perspective: what if Europeans became climate refugees rather than those who receive them? What if the borders they once crossed with ease suddenly became obstacles? Yet rather than turning this premise into a predictable disaster cliché, Vinterberg focuses on the intimate relationships and fault lines between people confronted with the consequences of the climate crisis. I don’t quite understand why there hasn’t been more buzz around this series, as its thought-provoking premise alone already makes it a very worthwhile watch.

Jeroen Boom

If you still haven’t watched Flow (2024), I cannot recommend it enough. This amazing 3D animation immerses you fully into a story of a cat, who’s forced to exile it’s home when the water level rises. The story is full of twists, turns and fun creatures, as it balances post-apocalyptic setting with the beauty of the natural world. Flow is a Latvian, French and Belgian production and it won Academy and Golde Globe Awards for best animated feature film.

Aliisa Råmark

This book celebrates the fabulously diverse but also vanishing vocabulary in which people have described places and landscapes. Did you know that in Devon people used the word ammil for the fine film of silver ice that coats leaves, twigs and grass when freeze follows a thaw? Or, more rudely, that alongside beautiful monikers such as windhover and bell-hawk in some English dialects the elegant kestrel is referred to as wind-fucker? As Macfarlane remarks, “Once learnt, never forgotten – its is hard now not to see in the pose of the hovering kestrel a certain lustful quiver” (7). Landmarks is a book that enriches our perception of the world and, in a magical way, allows us to think and speak with the landscape. Wherever the summer may take you, it will let you a see a world of which you didn’t know that it was there. 

Frederik van Dam

A work of art that has completely blown me over in the past year is the novel Journey to the Edge of Life by the Turkish female writer Tezer Özlü (1943-1986). It was translated in 2025 in both Dutch and English. Although it is a rather melancholy book, the Dutch publisher nevertheless praised it as a summer tip. After all, it is all about travelling. It starts on ‘the most beautiful spring day of the year’ and what follows is deeply inquisitive, atmospheric, and rebellious. On an obsessive journey through Europe, a woman drawn to the gravesites of her literary idols – Cesare Pavese, Italo Svevo, Franz Kafka – puts her life and her writing in conversation with theirs. 

Natascha Veldhorst