When Henk’s twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to return to the small family farm. He resigns himself to taking over his brother’s role and spending the rest of his days ‘with his head under a cow’. After his old, worn-out father has been transferred upstairs, Helmer sets about furnishing the rest of the house according to his own minimal preferences. ‘A double bed and a duvet’, advises Ada, who lives next door, with a sly look. Then Riet appears, the woman once engaged to marry his twin. Could Riet and her son live with him for a while, on the farm? The Twin is an ode to the platteland, the flat and bleak Dutch countryside with its ditches and its cows and its endless grey skies. Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, as seen through the eyes of a farmer, The Twin is, in the end, about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one’s own hands. It chronicles a way of life which has resisted modernity, is culturally apart, and yet riven with a kind of romantic longing.From the Hardcover edition.

The Twin

Bakker, Gerbrand

Literature & Fiction

Vintage Books

The Detour

The new novel, set in the UK, from the author of the Impac Prize-winning bestseller The Twin. A Dutch woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales. She says her name is Emilie. She is a lecturer doing some research, and sets about making the farmhouse more homely. When she arrives there are ten geese living in the garden but one by one they disappear. Perhaps it's the work of a local fox. She has fled from an unbearable situation having recently confessed to an affair with one of her students. In Amsterdam, her stunned husband forms a strange partnership with a detective who agrees to help him trace her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. Back on the farm, a young man out walking with his dog injures himself and stays the night, then ends up staying longer. Yet something is deeply wrong. Does he know what he is getting himself into? And what will happen when her husband and the policeman arrive? Gerbrand Bakker has made the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. The Detour is a deeply moving new novel, shot through with longing and the quiet tragedy of everyday lives.

Literary

Vintage

June 1969: everyone is gathered to welcome Queen Juliana, the boys and girls waving their flags. As the monarch is getting into her car to leave, little Hanne Kaan and her mother arrive late—the Queen strokes the little girl’s cheek and regally offers Anna Kaan her hand. It would have been an unforgettable day of celebration if only the baker hadn’t been running late with his deliveries and knocked down Hanne with his brand-new VW van. Years later, tending his sister's grave, Jan Kaan is overcome again with grief and silent fury. Isn’t it finally time to get to the bottom of things? And why won’t anyone explain to his little niece Dieke why grandma has been lying up in the hayloft for a day and a half, nursing a bottle of Advocaat and refusing to see anyone? June traces in spellbinding, tender detail how the ripples from one tragic incident spread through a community, a family and down the generations.

June

Vintage, UK

Have you ever wanted to disappear and make a new life for yourself where no one knows your name? Ten White Geese is the eagerly anticipated, internationally bestselling new novel by the winner of the world’s richest literary prize for a single work of fiction. Fans of Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses or Paul Harding’s Tinkers may find in Ten White Geese a new novel to fall in love with. A woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales. She says her name is Emilie. An Emily Dickinson scholar, she has fled Amsterdam, having just confessed to an affair. On the farm she finds ten geese. One by one they disappear. Who is this woman? Will her husband manage to find her? The young man who stays the night: why won’t he leave? And the vanishing geese?
 Set against a stark and pristine landscape, and with a seductive blend of solace and menace, this novel of stealth intrigue summons from a woman’s silent longing fugitive moments of profound beauty and compassion.

Ten White Geese: A Novel

Penguin??Books

The new novel, set in the UK, from the author of the Impac Prize-winning bestseller The Twin. A Dutch woman, a university English lecturer researching the work of Emily Dickinson, rents a farm in remote, rural Wales.  When she arrives, there are ten geese living on the farm, but one by one they disappear. Perhaps it's the work of a local fox. The reason for her move abroad gradually becomes clear: her husband is trying to track her down. Having confessed to an affair with one of her students in Amsterdam, she has quietly fled to Wales from a situation that had become unbearable. Her husband contacts the police and teams up with a detective to go and look for her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. But in the meantime, the woman increasingly seems to be losing her grip on the situation. Gerbrand Bakker has made the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. The Detour is a gripping and subtle new novel.

HARVILL/SECKER

On a hot summer's day in June 1969 everyone is gathered to welcome Queen Juliana. The young boys and girls wave their flags enthusiastically. But just as the monarch is getting into her car to leave, little Hanne Kaan and her mother arrive late - the Queen strokes the little girl's cheek and regally offers Anna Kaan her hand. It would have been an unforgettable day of celebration if only the baker hadn't been running late with his deliveries and knocked down Hanne, playing on the roadside, with his brand-new VW van. Years later, Jan Kaan arrives on a hot day in June in order to tidy his sister's grave, and is overcome again with grief and silent fury. Isn't it finally time to get to the bottom of things? Should the permit for the grave be extended? And why won't anyone explain to his little niece Dieke why grandma has been lying up in the hayloft for a day and a half, nursing a bottle of Advocaat and refusing to see anyone? June traces in spellbinding, tender detail how the ripples from one tragic incident spread through a community, a family and down the generations.

La Haut Tout Est Calme (Folio) (French Edition)

Contemporary

Gallimard Education

Parce que les fleurs sont blanches

Genre Fiction

Фоліо

Tage im Juni

Suhrkamp Verlag AG

Der Umweg (German Edition)

Suhrkamp Verlag

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