The Diary of a Chambermaid was written as a satire of Parisian society in the wake of the Drey-fus Affair. Octave Mirbeau brings a journalist’s analytical eye to Celestine’s adventures as she loses her innocence and becomes as corrupt and depraved as the men who exploited her. Since its publication in 1900 it has never ceased to shock and fascinate its readers and has been made into a film by Jean Renoir in 1946 and Luis Bunuel in 1964.

This is a novel with many themes. It is about Brabant, a land that is presently half in the Netherlands and the other half in Belgium. It is also the story of a little Brabanter boy, born the year Adolf Hitler came to power. The boy wants a good life and that is not so easy because the Catholic Brabanters are kept down by the Calvinist Hollanders. Many other modern themes come by, such as the Second World War, the emancipation (of women but also of the Catholics), the pill and its effects, se...

Towards the middle of the twenty-first century, the Covid-19 (‘Corona’) crisis of the early twenties, which killed millions, is forgotten. Yet the virus has changed Planet Earth irreversibly. It laid bare the naked fact that the world had become too dependent on traditional forms of nutrition, communication and transportation.

When the virus had finally been defeated, brilliant minds applied themselves to developing innovative techniques to elevate what remained of humanity to an entirel...

‘Sylvia Duijm was not born as Master of Passion, it is what she became when she combined her studies, interests and experience of life’. In an outspoken way, Sylvia Duijm tells of her quest for acknowledgement, love and friendship. As a daughter in an ex-pat family, she moved seven times before she was seven years old, living on four different continents. Her parents’ unstable marriage, her temperament, the rules that applied in the various environments, and repeated changes of school r...

The Last of the Legions and other Tales of long ago is a volume collecting 13 short stories written by Artur Conan Doyle, first published in 1922 by John Murray. The stories covers various centuries from Antiquity to first millenary. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (1859-1930) was a Scottish author. He is most no-ted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Cha...

Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean old man with no friends or family to love him - he’s just so miserable and bitter! One freezing cold Christmas Eve, Marley’s Ghost pays Scrooge a visit and an eerie night-time journey begins. The Christmas spirits are here to show Scrooge the error if his nasty ways. By visiting his past, present and future, will Scrooge learn to love Christmas and the others around him?

The famous physicist Olivier Loos compares his life with that of the loafer Tobias Vlek, he knows from his youth. As time goes by his appreciation for Tobias Vlek grows, realizing how he had failed in meeting his own expectations. His opposition against Albert Einstein met resistance with settled reputes and damaged his career. Therefore he chose for safer subjects due to sense of duty for his family. The adventurous life of Tobias Vlek appeals more and more to his imagination. Less welcome s...

Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy’s Progress, Charles Dickens’s second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the “Artful Dodger”, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin.

Oliver Twist unromantically portrays the sordid lives of criminals, and exposes th...

Years and years have passed. Everything that I loved is now dead. Everything that I knew has taken on a new appearance. The church has been rebuilt. It now has an embellished doorway, arched windows, fancy gutter-spouts representing flaming mouths of demons; its new brick belf-ry laughs gaily into the blue; in place of the old house there now rises an elaborate Swiss cottage built by the new proprietor who, in the enclosure, has increased the number of colored glass balls, small cascades and...