One restless summer, anxious and dismayed by mounting crisis and conflict on Earth, poet and journalist Marjolijn van Heemstra learns of a phenomenon known as the overview effect. Experienced by many astronauts when beholding our planet from the remoteness of space, it’s a permanent shift in consciousness—an overwhelming sense of wholeness and connection with humanity and the planet. In Light-Years There’s No Hurry is the account of van Heemstra’s yearlong quest to experience the overview effect on Earth. We follow as she takes a night walk through a forest in search of true darkness, listens to the distant singing of exoplanets at a radio observatory and learns of prisoners working with astrophysicists to imagine possible human settlements on Mars. Contemplating the solace a cosmic perspective offers in our frenetic, divided world, In Light-Years There’s No Hurry is a lyrical, searching meditation on what it is to be human amidst the vastness of the universe.

In 1932, Isay Rottenberg, a Jewish paper merchant, bought a cigar factory in Germany: Deutsche Zigarren-Werke. When his competitors, supported by Nazi authorities, tried to shut it down, the headstrong entrepreneur refused to give up the fight. Isay Rottenberg was born into a large Jewish family in Russian Poland in 1889 and grew up in Lodz. He left for Berlin at the age of eighteen to escape military service, moving again in 1917 to Amsterdam on the occasion of his marriage. In 1932 he moved to Germany to take over a bankrupt cigar factory. With newfangled American technology, it was the most modern at the time. The energetic and ambitious Rottenberg was certain he could bring it back to life, and with newly hired staff of 670 workers, the cigar factory was soon back in business. Six months later, Hitler came to power and the Nazi government forbade the use of machines in the cigar industry so that traditional hand-rollers could be re-employed. That was when the real struggle began. More than six hundred qualified machine workers and engineers would lose their jobs if the factory had to close down. Supported by the local authorities he managed to keep the factory going, but in 1935 he was imprisoned following accusations of fraud. The factory was expropriated by the Deutsche Bank. When he was released six months later thanks to the efforts of the Dutch consul, he brought a lawsuit of his own. His fight for rehabilitation and restitution of his property would continue until Kristallnacht in 1938. The Cigar Factory of Isay Rottenberg is written by two of Rottenberg's granddaughters, who knew little of their grandfather's past growing up in Amsterdam until a call for claims for stolen or confiscated property started them on a journey of discovery.

A darkly hilarious tale of a model family's disintegration. Professor Siem Sigerius - maths genius, jazz lover, judo champion, Renaissance man. When Aaron meets his girlfriend Joni's family for the first time, her multitalented father could hardly be a more intimidating figure, but somehow the underachieving photographer manages to bluff his way to a friendship with the paterfamilias. With his feet under the table at the beautiful Sigerius farmhouse, Aaron feels part of the family. A perfect family. Until, that is, things start to go wrong in a very big way. A cataclysmic explosion in a firework factory, the advent of internet pornography, the reappearance of a forgotten murderer and a jet-black wig-all play a role in the spectacular fragmentation of the Sigerius clan... and of Aaron's fragile psyche. 'One wild ride: a swirling helix of a family saga...a new writer as toe-curling as early Roth, as roomy as Franzen and as caustic as Houellebecq. Don't let me forget to mention Jonathan Reeder's note-perfect English translation.' Anthony Cummins, Sunday Telegraph, 5-stars 'Dutch bestseller about internet porn lives up to hype....a considerable achievement for a seasoned writer, much less a newcomer...' James Kidd, Independent 'Fluent and complex, uncompromising and occasionally shocking...' Daily Mail 'Buwalda writes with ferocious dexterity... Bonita Avenue is a family epic seething with learning and regret, the kind with which commuting becomes a pleasure.' New Statesman 'A brilliantly constructed story, with complex characters tested to the limit' The Lady 'One of the first great European novels of the 21st century' Foyles Bookshop interview with author Highly, highly recommended reading.Savidge Reads If I had to choose one first novel, it would be the addictive bedlam of Bonita Avenue... deserves to be a book, not just a debut, of the year' Independent Books of the Year 'Dripping with sex and bursting with comedy... in a plot of fiendish ingenuity. Buwalda has a cold eye for the hilarity of human disaster that would make Evelyn Waugh blanch. Read this book, love it, and try to ignore the twisting in your gut.' Booktrust 'Great European art: the Dutchman Peter Buwalda explodes the bourgeois family saga. The narrative pyrotechnics alone are a tour de force.' Die Zeit Born in Brussels in 1971, Peter Buwalda is a Dutch novelist, formerly a journalist, editor at several publishers, and founder of the literary music magazine Wah-Wah. Bonita Avenue is his debut novel. Published in 2010 to critical acclaim, it was shortlisted for twelve prizes, going on to win the Academica Prize, the Selexyz Debut Prize, the Tzum Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize and the Leesclubboek van het jaar. It spent two years on the bestseller lists, and has since been translated into seven languages. Bonita Avenue is a suspenseful, incendiary and unpredictable debut-of relationships torn apart by lies, and minds destroyed by madness.

Amsterdam Airport, 1998. Samir Karim steps off a plane from Vietnam, flushes his fake passport down the toilet, and requests asylum. Now, safely in the heart of Europe, he is sent to an asylum center and assigned a bed in a shared dorm - where he will spend the next nine years. As he navigates his way around the absurdities of Dutch bureaucracy, Samir tries his best to get along with his 500 new housemates. Told with compassion and a unique sense of humor, this is an inspiring tale of survival, a close-up view of the hidden world of refugees and human smugglers, and a sobering reflection of our times.

After nine years in a Dutch asylum centre, Samir finally has the chance to start his new life as a European citizen. But it's a full-time occupation for him to discover that integration needs a dog leash and a rubber ball. Happily, this distracts him from what is happening in his native land, Iraq, and from Leda, who stole his heart in the first village he stayed in after being granted refugee status. In this hilarious adventure story, we follow the lovable and gritty Samir as he talks his way into every type of accommodation to be found in this new country full of incomprehensible rules.

"[A] funny, serious, clever novel." -The New York Times From award-winning Dutch author Martin Michael Driessen comes a fearlessly funny tragedy about an improbable friendship, unstable dreams, missed opportunities, and epic coincidence. In a quiet coastal town in Yugoslavia, two men seeking more than the Communist regime can offer find their lives deceitfully entwined. Andrej is a postman in complete denial of his existence. He yearns for respect and fame but commits petty crimes for reasons he doesn't fully comprehend. Josip is an increasingly irrelevant cable car operator and unfaithfully married. Life was so much simpler when neither one knew the other's secrets. Now that they do-discovered quite by accident-each man has resorted to blackmailing the other. As their anonymous misdeeds escalate, a farce of mutual dependency begins. So does the unlikeliest of friendships when Andrej and Josip finally meet face-to-face. In a tale set against the impending wars, Martin Michael Driessen ingeniously explores the foibles of two painfully ordinary men boldly staking their claims on life.