Reading Books

I'm still crazy about reading, books, newspapers, magazines everything is good. However, now with Internet the time is very limited. Newspapers can be found on Internet, even as many interesting Forums. Life is too short. Please read this page to see my favorite, mostly Dutch books.

Some of my favorite series

De Club van Draadje

Click on the cover for an enlargement.

These books are about technical adventures of a boy called "Draadje" - which means "wire" in English. He has an Amateur Radio Station, and this is may be "wireless", but he has so many wires in his shack that they call him "Draadje". They are written around 1958 and on several places in these books it is already mentioned that smoking is very unhealty, so the people who did't know were reading the wrong books.

De Jongens van de Hobby Club

A group of Dutch High School boys forms the "Hobby Club". The goal is to help each other and to combine their different hobbies. Leo van der Sluis, an enthusiastic radio amateur becomes the president. The father of one of the members makes the attic available above its company office at the Herengracht in Amsterdam.

Their first large object becomes taking a promotion-film with sound on "records". This is done in cooperation" between the sections: radio, electricity, photography and film.

They start with a magazine "HOBBY CLUB" with subscriptions from all over the country. Give courses in radio technique, Morse, electricity and photography are given, a library is setup, excursions to Philips and radio Kootwijk are organized and they participate in radio fox hunting.

This book was written by Leonard de Vries, a good and very active Dutch writer. he wrote over 100 books and many of them are translated in other languages.

Dutch info link Note: disable JavaScript to go direct to this page.

Karl May, all books

Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and don't forget Kara Ben Nemsi, the hero of the Middle East desserts.
Yet, the English-speaking world is almost totally ignorant of May and his heroes Winnetou, Old Shatterhand or Kara Ben Nemsi, a German scholar, and his Arab friend Hadji Halef Omar who shared many an adventure in what is now called Kurdistan just over a hundred years ago. The reason is simple. Almost none of May's books have ever been translated into English.

Karl May on wikipedia