First CRC Library
Category:
Biography
Cruel Paradise deftly weaves together the firsthand stories of men and women who emigrated from the Netherlands throughout the twentieth century. A skilled stylist with an unassuming presence, Hylke Speerstra brings readers along as he circles the globe interviewing transplanted Netherlanders in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Combining elements of memoir and travelogue, his narrative speaks to universal human experience as it vividly recounts the trials and successes of these emigrants. Common themes of personal identity and family, uprootedness and loss, nostalgia and bittersweet joy run throughout the book. Yet these emigrants have had very diverse life experiences. Some have become affluent beyond imagining, brushing elbows with Rockefellers, Kennedys, and movie producers; others have spent the better part of a lifetime eking out their living as farmers. Often poignant, sometimes amusing, always memorable, these stories provide a moving tribute to those who left their homeland behind with little more than uncertain hopes for their children.
| Author | Speerstra, Hylke |
| Year Published | 2005 |
Category:
Biography
On May 10, 1940, Hitler's war machine blitzkrieged its way through the peaceful farm country of the Netherlands. In one small village, a boy's life would be forever changed by the events of the next 5 years. Readers will discover what it was like when you knew you were about to die in a hail of bullets. Still there is plenty of fun and mischief too with friends and siblings. The Way it Was is mostly about events during the Second World War. Those events not only affected the author's life; it largely molded the lives of all those who lived during the twentieth century. The Way it Was is intended to assure that the memories of that great conflict and the sacrifices made, will not soon be forgotten.
| Author | Baron, Sid |
| Year Published | 2006 |
