From my bookshelves: Plan B by Sabine Leenhouts

 Journalist Sabine Leenhouts proudly on the cover of her first book

a peek at the 12 page interview

 my Sunday reading spot

Friday I found a package on the doormat. It was from Bruna publishers. Inside was the book "Plan B" by driven, charming Dutch journalist Sabine Leenhouts. For her book she interviewed 20 people who radically changed their careers (and lives), sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary. Giving an insight on how they (finally) got to follow their own heart, THEIR passion, in stead those of others. With the book Sabine wants to share that nothing is impossible and inspire people to dare to chase their own dreams.
I had a wonderful, inspiring afternoon with Sabine when she interviewed me and I feel honoured to be part of her book.

The book can be ordered through http://bol.com (available in Dutch only). With 20 illustrated portraits by talented artist Lisette de Zoete.

The Common Reader

I recently bought a Harvest Books edition of Virginia Woolf's "The Common Reader". I have been buying quite a few of her books recently, not in first instance to read but as props for my booth at Dutch interior design fair "De Woonbeurs" (end of September). This edition instantly attracted me because of its cover design by Rudi Bass, but reading the back page I was sold!
"The common reader," says Virginia Woolf, "differs from the critic and scholar....He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinion of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole-a portrait of a man, as sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing." Reading these words Woolf's reader doesn't sound so common to me. Should it have been "The Creative Reader" in stead?

To Judge a Book by its Cover

I possess a lot of books. They are a great source of inspiration. Usually I buy a book because of it content, but there are occassions that I buy a book simply because I am attracted by its cover. This cover is from an art catalogue for Braque's exhibition at museum Boymans in Rotterdam in 1956. It is so simple yet attractive that I keep it on display.

"There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain."
Georges Braque