~Short English Review Below~

Koning van Katoren was een van mijn favoriete jeugdboeken, dus toen er een vervolg uit zou komen, was ik gematigd enthousiast. Natuurlijk wilde ik meer Katoren, maar ik was ook bang dat het (een deel van) de magie zou wegnemen. Zoektocht in Katoren komt redelijk repetitief over, zowel naar het origineel als binnen het boek zelf. Desalnietemin heb ik me er wel even mee vermaakt. Ik zou het alleen niet herlezen.

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'Koning van Katoren' was one of my favourite children's book, so I had to read this sequel once it was published. While not a good as the original, I still enjoyed myself reading it.

I got this book at a school activity way back and I had kind of forgotten about it, until one rainy afternoon I picked it up and also immediately finished it in one sitting (which was unusual for me at that time).

I believe it is an early form of YA thriller, which I thought was nice, but it was a bit too unrealistic I'm afraid. Which was not to say I didn't like it though.

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Ik weet nog hoe ik dit boek had gewonnen in een tombola op school, en hoe het vervolgens vrij lang stof heeft lopen vangen op mijn kamer. Uiteindelijk, waarschijnlijk in een bui van verveling, heb ik het er toch eens bij gepakt en meteen op een middag uitgelezen. Want spannend is het wel.

Het is een jeugdboek, absoluut, maar zeker een jeugdboek met thrillereffecten (en dat voordat de YA-thriller cool was). Ik vond het leuk om te lezen toen, nu zou ik het waarschijnlijk wel erg ongeloofwaardig hebben gevonden, maar toen ik het las maakte me dat niets uit. Voor iemand van een jaar of negen, die een spannende middag wil meemaken, is dit een fantastisch boek!

Pjotr is one of those Dutch children's literature classics that we were, uhm, encouraged to read while in primary school. It resulted in there being at least one copy of it in every classroom. Unfortunately, every year I ended up with a copy just before the end of the year, so I've read the beginning four times I believed without ever reaching the end.

It's the story of Pjotr, who's father is sent to prison in Siberia. He wants to visit him, but will have to travel through all of Russia.

While in the end I managed to read the book completely, it was never really one of my favorites. Even as I child I had some troubles with the believability of the story. I suppose that always starting over didn't help either for my reading experience. Still, it wasn't bad at all, and I think loads of people from my generation have read it.

Or: Koning van Katoren as the book is called in Dutch.

The King of Katoren dies without leaving an heir and a group of ministers seizes the power, being very reluctant to give it away to the new king, should he arise. Therefore, they set a set of seven nearly impossible (almost Herculean) works that need to be completed...

I really liked this story as a child. It's a real classic in The Netherlands and I think almost everyone has read it at some point. I cannot vouch for the English translation, since I haven't read it, but I would certainly recommend the Dutch version. It was one of my favorites.

What can I say... I bought books.. again haha. I bought quite a lot, but let's say I blame the stress when it comes to school and they were cheap. Anyhow, these are the books: 

Oorlogswinter is a Dutch classic which I've never read, so when I heard it was only 1 euro, I had to buy it. It's about a winter in World War II. Of course I had to buy In The Afterlight, because it's the third book in The Darkest Minds trilogy. I gave away my copy of The Martian to a friend, because she will (is liking) it more than I do and she gave me Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, because I really want to read it and she doesn't want to anymore. 

Heuh, Penguin Little Black classics? But Vienna, you already own them al?! That's what I thought as well! These are new ones Penguin came out with in March, but this time I decided to buy only the few ones I really want (I want three of four more, trust me). I bought the one by Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë. I've read other works by these authors and loved them all, so of course I had to buy these four first. 

My next goal is to make complete collections of authors that I already own some books of. I already had Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Pride and Prejudice, but now I own all of her novels. Sadly enough not in the same style (Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park are a bit different) and I had to buy Persuasion secondhand and it's a bit colour damaged, but it's complete! The short story collection is also on my way. Jane Austen isn't my favorite author (I've only liked Emma so far), but when I do like/love a book by her, I will also buy a different edition. I really want Emma in the Word Cloud edition, so yea. The edition I have now is very cheap, so then I don't mind.

What books have you bought recently?