Family memoirs in the recent past are not uncommon but 13 Round the Table is quite different. In this book no less than eleven living siblings share memories from their youth in their own characteristic ways

The differences are almost greater than the similarities, which provides a fascinating range of reflections. This large Calvinistic rural family from the North part of The Netherlands, rises from the poverty of the 50s – when happiness was common - to prosperity. This book shows fami...

I don't know how long I sat there, but suddenly my entire body reacted when I heard a familiar laugh somewhere behind me. Looking round, I saw her, sitting with three other girls of which one was my sister, talking to each other in that hushed tone girls can do so well while laughing as they shot glances at me.

'Oh fuck me,' I groaned but something inside me stood up and slapped me in the face.

'Man up,' it said, 'You got a chance and you're blowing it. So man up and grow some balls for fucks...

Something drifted overhead, the sunlight irregularly reflecting off the oddly shaped object. For a moment Lena thought it was what an asteroid might look like with the ice peeled off, but there was too much metal reflection for it to be a natural phenomenon. Then it hit her that it wasn't something natural at all, but man-made. The ship's hull had been twisted completely out of shape, showing big gaping holes like an enormous creature had bit down hard on it and spat it out again.

There were...