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Library
Reducing my library. One day, we'll have to move from this house to a smaller place, as prices of energy keep mounting steeply. Less room for books. The hardest question is not what to keep. I find I lost interest to quite a lot of stuff I accumulated over the years. The hardest question: how to reduce the further buying of books, since so many ( Read more... ) -
Back in town
I might pick up this journal again, see if I got many friends left, probably not. Last entry was somewhere in 2008 (prehistory, actually), and many things happened. Live happened. Since then I've published ten crime novels, nominated for awards with three of them and won the Hercule Poirot Award with 'Absint', the first of the batch. Financial ( Read more... ) -
Fortis
I'm currently writing a pamphlet accusing groups of shareholders of Fortis Holding of endangering the jobs of some 25.000 employees of Fortis Bank and Fortis Insurance (both in Belgium ( Read more... ) -
New Book.
Last version of the thriller to come ('Absinthe' -- notice the unusual spelling in Dutch) has been accepted by my publisher, after some rewriting. Publication date still February 2009. The story collection however is late: Roelof Goudriaan is still working on the final version and I have not seen the proofs yet ( Read more... ) -
New Book.
It's more or less official now: Mynx will publish my crime book early next year. It's a new genre for me, as far as this is a mainstream thriller, without fantastic and/or SF-elements ( Read more... ) -
New Book(s)
Yesterday Jo Claes presented his new book ('De Zaak Torfs') at the Library in Leuven. I've known Jo for many years and it's great seeing that he now has moved (again) to a larger publisher. And with a crime book, situated in Leuven, of all things. He's working on the next one ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Have been spending part of last weekend in the emergency section of Gasthuisberg Hospital. Did a bit of (too) heavy work in the garden on Saturday morning and probably strained some (or all) lower back muscles. Could hardly move after that. Down on my back on the coach in the evening and when I got up to go to bed I fainted. Just for a short while ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Finished reading 'No Country for Old men' in what amounts to one extended sitting. Am currently not inclined to go see the movie. Just yesterday I saw Steven Pinker on TED explaining that violence and wars etc are much less frequent than in previous historical periods. McCarthy would probably not agree with him ( Read more... ) -
Iain Banks
Iain Banks at Scotland House in Brussels this afternoon (thanks to Nicholas for pointing my attention at the event). Iain, whom I met and corresponded with some twenty years ago -- not so long before internet, actually -- was his usual interesting and playful self. He talked about the two sorts of fiction he writers, under his two almost identical ( Read more... ) -
Interviews
Just back from Amsterdam and London. Interviewed Robert Reich in Amsterdam and Kasra Naji (an Iranian journalist who has written a book on Ahmadinejad) in London ( Read more... )