Categorie: books
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anxiety – covid19
In these stay-home times, reading is a welcome distraction. But clearly you read differently. Covid19 is never far away. I just finished “How to Think More Effectively. A guide to greater productivity, insight and creativity” from The School of Life (no credited author, always anonymous). I want to share the following section with you. Write…
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coming of age & AIDS
Identities become not so much categories to be occupied, owned, protected, or rejected, but spaces to be navigated, revisited, revised and elided on a moment-to-moment basis. – Noreen Giffney Over the Ortmann’s New Year’s family lunch on February 1st – yes, we tend to postpone celebrations – my niece Bettina, who is a librarian in…
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inlevingsvermogen
Thuis praten Filip en ikzelf vaak over empathie. En dat hangt meestal vast aan een concreet geval. Dat ik wel, meestal geen empathie heb voor een bepaalde persoon in een bepaalde situatie. Of omgekeerd, dat hij geen empathie heeft voor iets wat ik meemaak. Als ik hem over de middag wel eens bel en zeg…
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lie with me (by philippe besson)
I try to read authors in their original language. As my favorite books are mostly Anglo-Saxon, Flemish and French that is not an issue. Books in Switzerland are at least 10 % more expensive and my shop there Payot does not offer me the inspiration I need. So each time I visit Brussels I buy…
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DNA matches
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA, Dani Shapiro received the astonishing news that her beloved deceased father was not her biological father. Over the course of a single day, her entire history – the life she had lived – crumbled beneath her. In just…
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space, my 2018 word of the year
It is this time of the year when lists are published and when the word of the year is chosen. According to Oxford the 2018 word of the year is “toxic”; Collins selected “single-use” and van Dale, in my native Flemish-Dutch language, picked “moordstrookje”. Don’t even try to Google translate it ! I just finished…
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tribe of mentors
Timothy – Tim – Ferriss, best known for his book “The 4-hour Workweek”, has a new one out. In “Tribe of Mentors. Short Life Advice from the Best in the World” inspiring people answer a simple eleven questions. As I wrote to some people in my team “one can never have too many mentors”. This…
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mcluhan revisted
I have read “Understanding Media : the extensions of man”, Marshall McLuhan’s masterpiece a long time ago. The medium, or process, of our time – electric technology – is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every…
JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER 