Alper Cugun

@alper.nl 🦋 • Joined 6 days ago

Doing Platform Engineering in Berlin Now: Uiua, Iceland 14/8-2/9, road cycling, Claude Code, Cuppin.gs, 十一月日本にハイキング旅行を計画しています, Gleam, mountains

Library

Reviews

Schwundgeld, Freiwirtschaft und Rassenwahn, Kapitalismuskritik von rechts: Der Fall Silvio Gesellby Peter Bierl(3 ⭐)

An interesting treatment of a very particular and mostly forgotten tendency in economics. A lot of the ideas of these people were batshit, but then again at the end of the 19th century who wasn't?<br/><br/>Given how bad a lot of the takes are of Gesell and his accomplices, there's not that much reason to put them in an even worse light. Bierl can't resist loading up and over and then effectively throwing out the baby with the bathwater just to make this or that Marxist point.<br/><br/>I'd say that that is not only unnecessary but also there are a bunch of ideas in Gesell's thinking that have merit and that have survived in one way or another. Rent seeking, accumulation and land parasitism are definitely issues that have been addressed outside of Marxist thought, whether it's by George, Keynes or other economists who we would now often call heterodox.<br/><br/>As such the book is more than a bit unbalanced, but all in all not terrible.

Excessionby Iain M. Banks(3 ⭐)

Sloppily written space opera, entertaining enough to finish it.

One Piece, Volume 1: Romance Dawnby Eiichiro Oda(4 ⭐)

Read in German. Actually pretty good. Decent pacing and some nice action sequences.<br/><br/>Don’t think I’ll read much more unless this catches on with the kids.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prisonby Michel Foucault(4 ⭐)

Foucault is such a beast. Unbelievable.

Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Seasonby Forugh Farrokhzad(3 ⭐)

The poetry is quite accomplished but thematically this is mostly somebody stuck in a pubescent society where getting laid seems to be a huge deal.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: JavaScript Editionby Harold Abelson

The writing was unfortunately not updated and is still very unclear in lots of areas.<br/><br/>The code was converted to Javascript and the authors seem to only have the ternary operator to their disposal. No idea why. Maybe they think this makes their conversion more lispy?<br/><br/>One of many examples:<br/><pre><br/>function pascal_triangle(row, index) {<br/> return index > row<br/> ? false<br/> : index === 1 || index===row<br/> ? 1<br/> : pascal_triangle(row - 1, index - 1)<br/> +<br/> pascal_triangle(row - 1, index);<br/>}<br/></pre><br/><br/>This is preposterously bad programming.

Blindsightby Peter Watts(4 ⭐)

Riveting bit of sci-fi psychological horror that sags a bit around two thirds but on the whole is pretty refreshing. Many of the hard sci-fi themes are treated without being coy about it and that alone is worth the price of admission.

My Tender Matadorby Pedro Lemebel(4 ⭐)

This is an amazing book. Expertly constructed. Concise. Extremely sad while at the same time embedded in a larger hopeful political ideal. Beautiful.<br/><br/>(Look up the FPMR logo if you want to see something that goes very hard. If anybody can hook me up with merchandise…)<br/><br/>Just the trope about gay guys giving handjobs in dirty cinemas, is that necessary?

Kafka Connect: Build and Run Data Pipelinesby Mickael Maison(3 ⭐)

More or less a standard tech book. Some nice examples but then in the end runs out of steam and finishes with a line by line treatment of a bunch of built-in APIs.

Arkada Yaylılar Çalıyorby Melikşah Altuntaş(3 ⭐)

Okudum fakat çok nadiren zevk aldığım bir kitap oldu. Kısa hikaye kitabi desek onu bile pek yerine getirmeyen bir eser. En uzunu on sayfayı geçmeyen hikayelerin arasında bir sürü 1-2 sayfalık anlatımlarda yer alıyor. Bunlar hikaye bile sayılamayan, hiç bir şey geliştirmeyip, bağlama da pek katkısı olmayan öykü kırıntıları gibi.<br/><br/>Asıl sorun ve bütün meselenin kaynağı bence bunun bir Instagram’cının kitabı olması. Instagram bir "ben" mecrası ve genelde orda etkin olan şeyler, insanin şahsına yakın anlatımlar. Yazarın tecrübeside her zaman o tarafa yöneldiği için bu kitapta kendisiyle açtığı mesafe dolayından zorluk çekti bence. Kitaptaki olayların yazarın kendi hayatından kaynaklanması açıkça ortada duruyor.<br/><br/>Bir de bazı yerlerde yazıların biçemi pek hoş değil ve daha güzel bir biçimde yazılsaydı büyük bir faydası olacaktı.

Developing Apps with GPT-4 and ChatGPT: Build Intelligent Chatbots, Content Generators, and Moreby Olivier Caelen(3 ⭐)

Don’t get me wrong this is a very useful book in that it’s absurdly applied. It has everything in it including commands, code and API docs to drag people through the process of building a ChatGPT app.<br/><br/>That does what it has to do but is just generally very thin. Also the explanations where things get a bit more complicated weren’t great which I think comes with the territory.

Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moonby Torben Kuhlmann(3 ⭐)

Beautifully drawn and reasonably well executed. Still a bit lackluster.

Why Marx Was Rightby Terry Eagleton(3 ⭐)

Eagleton does a good throw but doesn't manage to convince.<br/><br/>What I take away from the book:<br/><br/>Nobody should really be dealing with Marx or original source material because who knows what to read, how to read it and then what it would mean anymore in the current day. We need strong criticisms of capitalism that are based in our current day and age. We don't need to keep trying to revive a bunch of long dead guys.<br/><br/>I'll say this is why Piketty was and is such a big deal and there are many other people pushing forward from a current and material understanding of the world. Give people Marxism if you must, but just don't mention Marx. Better yet, start from first principles and figure out what we need here and now.

Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Lifeby James Kerr(3 ⭐)

A really badly written book that's mostly a bunch of quotes the author pulled from all over the place strung together with sound bytes from the team.<br/><br/>I was warned that the book had "a lot of locker room talk" which was untrue. I wish it had a lot of it, because then it would at least be worth the price of admission. Leadership quotes I can find anywhere, really reading and feeling how the All Blacks team works, would be special.<br/><br/>That said, the themes the book touches on are worthwhile, the Maori proverbs add a lot of color and there are some good insides hidden in between.

Timo en de Oppasninjaby Lisa Boersen(4 ⭐)

This is good fun and more sophisticated than appears at first glance.<br/><br/>Also, I repeatedly got the question: “Where’s Timo’s dad?” Does anybody know?

Die kleine Dame und der rote Prinzby Stefanie Taschinski(4 ⭐)

Much better than the first book which… is weird.

Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practiceby Matt Malpass(2 ⭐)

As somebody who was active in this field I felt I needed to read this book maybe just to see what it was all about.<br/><br/>There are issues at two levels here:<br/><br/>The book is a litany of examples taken from the field with some contextualization and filler added in between. The definition and model around the way we should think about critical design is better than not having anything but generally seems to me to be relatively arbitrary (as these things always are). As such the book is a useful period inventory—with texts like those you would write up in a gallery—but conceptually there isn't that much there.<br/><br/>The much more serious problem of a book like this is its lack of a critical (!) approach to the work it's treating. It rightly points out that this kind of work is very much at risk of being 'navel gazing' but does not diagnose that both its treatment and the subject matter do very little to break out of that frame. We are left with general prescriptions like "Critical design should [engage with others]" and more hollow words along those lines.<br/><br/>Here's my take after reading the book: Critical design has been a movement where designers tried to claw themselves up out of the purely visual realm into areas of more strategic consequence (the proverbial "seat at the table"). The work they produced remained almost entirely seated in the visual media and a lot of it was the non-functional aesthetization of pre-existing concepts from science-fiction and philosophy.<br/><br/>That would be fine so far but because the work was never functional in any real way it has not survived the reality vortex of the past five years where everything has turned into a work of fiction. Many startups are scams ('design fictions') of some sort and the high-concept rug pull is the currency of our techno-visual world. Is there space for critical design in a world where everything needs to be criticized but nothing can be? It doesn't look like it but that kind of reinvention is the core job of these practitioners and I'm curious to see what they come up with.

Clean Architectures in Pythonby Leonardo Giordani(2 ⭐)

A weird book that starts out with TDD and mocking before it talks about architecture at all. <br/><br/>The example app in the book is a reasonable guide for how to structure something but: 1. There is barely a discussion on the architectural trade offs and as such the book doesn’t help you make a decision. 2. You can use Django and a lot of this architecture will be filled in for you in a pragmatic and proven way.<br/><br/>Again way more content about testing than anything else so not sure what the goal of this book is.

Midnight’s Childrenby Salman Rushdie(3 ⭐)

A tour de force by Rushdie which does what it intends to do, but is just too slow and heavy for me. The main thing I took from this book is an appreciation for and an interest in India’s culture and history.

An Invitation to Applied Category Theory: Seven Sketches in Compositionalityby Brendan Fong(4 ⭐)

A very enjoyable and accessible way to get into higher level mathematics and category theory. The book contains full proofs and solutions and is written in a very pleasant style. I could follow every chapter more or less together with the online lectures.

Rise: 3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, and Liking Your Lifeby Patty Azzarello(5 ⭐)

One of the best management books that combines things I read in other books (most notably <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18498555-executive-presence?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=aIM5OFl1yE&rank=2">"Executive Presence"</a>) but puts them in a punchy package and delivers fully on the subtitle about career, leadership and work/life.<br/><br/>I had to pace myself reading this because every chapter had half a dozen actionable insights which I wanted to digest.<br/><br/>The book is honest and charts a clear path how to figure out what you want to achieve and about the amount of real work and effort there is ahead of you if you want to go for the top job. Doing that work is up to you but it'll be hard to find a more clear eyed guide than this.

Cold Enough for Snowby Jessica Au(3 ⭐)

A quick read and poignant treatment of mother daughter relationships with Tokyo as a backdrop.

Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Croninby Paul Cronin

Maybe this is a cool book if you've seen most of Herzog's movies.<br/><br/>Otherwise it's just a book filled with an old man rambling and life is too short for that.

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Factsby Annie Duke(2 ⭐)

The talk about gambling is great but it is few and far between. I wish the author had focused on that.<br/><br/>The rest of the book is padded with your standard pop-sci drivel which is familiar, derivative and boring. The worst of it comes when she jumps into the Haidt trap of arguing for right-wing diversity to further better decision making. It's entirely unrelated to the book and marks the author as a tool.<br/><br/>Turning everything into a bet is a very limited view and even at that it isn't treated very deeply. Tell me how you write a book about bets without adding a lot of mathematics.<br/><br/>I'll grant that I as a life long stats junkie would not find anything interesting in this book but for people who don't have that as a background there may be a lot in there that's valuable.<br/><br/>The <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure_Anything?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=2SDoGeKKW0&rank=1">"How to measure anything…"</a> series of books are a much better and more serious introduction into quantification, estimation and decision making.

The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequalityby Toby Green

I haven’t read this but from hearing the authors’ speak, this seems mostly like a book to cater to the COVID truthers on the horseshoe left. Can anybody confirm?<br/><br/>Oh found it already, of course this book is garbage: http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2023/02/against-left-covid-scepticism.html

See/Saw: Looking at Photographsby Geoff Dyer(2 ⭐)

It’s cool to be able to do this, but looking up pictures for each photographer is just too much work. Almost zero payoff this way and I don’t have enough of a background in photography to appreciate it as it is.<br/><br/>Any other format and a lavish amount of photographs included would have made this a much much better book.

Zwischen Weltenby Juli Zeh

“Der eine Protagonist der Geschichte ist Stefan Jordan, Kulturchef bei einer grossen Hamburger Wochenzeitung; die andere Protagonistin ist Theresa Kallis, eine Landwirtin mit Ökobauernhof im (fiktiven) brandenburgischen Dorf Schütte.”<br/><br/>Clichéd garbage.

A First Course in Abstract Algebraby John B. Fraleigh(2 ⭐)

Much prefer the book by Gallian.

A Little Bit Braveby Nicola Kinnear(5 ⭐)

A perfect little book. The illustrations are stunning. Rare to see them done this well.

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and The Creation of the Modern Middle Eastby David Fromkin(3 ⭐)

One of the definitive guides to the First World War and its role in shaping the Middle East. Though the book has a tremendous scope, it necessarily focuses on Britain's role in the Great War and in its resulting division of the Middle East into the state it is in today.</p><p>There is too much to tell of that period of history, but this book can serve as a good starter.

The Reasoned Schemerby Daniel P. Friedman(2 ⭐)

I skimmed the last chapter because I didn’t see the point anymore. If I hadn’t read the same things explained in SICP, I would have had no idea what’s going on here.<br/><br/>Pity the students who were forced to study this material. The highly confusing and non-ergonomic organization of this book is not made up for by its cutesy question and answer format.

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Softwareby Eric Evans(3 ⭐)

The UML on steroids book.<br/><br/>As the author seems to have admitted, nobody should read this book. Also as somebody who has a lot of experience modeling, I got very few new insights from my 11 hours of ploughing through this brick.

The Ministry for the Futureby Kim Stanley Robinson(4 ⭐)

A crucially important, daring and optimistic book that can work as a spiritual blueprint for how to tackle climate change.<br/><br/>At a certain point in the book when they manage to reverse the increase of CO2 ppm which is a moment of stunning optimism and from where I'm standing despair. I'm not sure we'll ever reach that point within my lifetime but it's not for lack of things that we can do as the book demonstrates very adequately.

Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimizby Barış Bıçakçı(4 ⭐)

First of all, it's an absurd privilege to be able to read modern Turkish literature in the original, dipping in the richness of the Turkish language and without the wait for or the adulteration of a translation. (Oh how screwed you are if you have to translate one of these to Dutch. Maybe German would be a better target language, but even then… the result would be German.)<br/><br/>The book is more or less a single long letter, or lament of one friend (Ender) to another (Çetin) about a crucial period in their life where they shared their house with a girl (Nihal), how they both fell in love with her and how that ended. That direct address to the reader gives the book a breathlessness that draws you in and keeps you reading, chapter after short chapter.<br/><br/>But the love story is a sideshow to the main act that is the friendship between the two main characters. Nihal herself isn't much more than a prop both for our writer Ender and for the book itself.<br/><br/>And a deep and amazing friendship it is of two lifelong bachelors, sharing an apartment and while having two vastly different lives and personalities, also sharing pretty much everything else with each other. The kind of friendship that isn't <I>that</I> suspect (though of course it is somewhat suspect, because come on…) because this closeness between males is much more accepted in Mediterranean culture. A friendship so grand and enough for itself that it leaves no space for anything or anybody else. Except of course for Nihal, if she will have it.<br/><br/>Minor quibbles are that for all its words the book stays a bit on the surface when it comes to emotions, doesn't deliver any raunchiness (which in this day and age should be no issue) and draws exclusively from a typically Turkish lyrical style which—well written and <I>beautiful</I>—is somewhat too familiar.<br/><br/>Now I'm definitely curious to see <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/our-grand-despair/">the movie</a>.

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the Worldby Anand Giridharadas(4 ⭐)

Thinking back, this is one of the most accessible books out there that will reveal billionaire philanthropy for the sham that it is. After reading it you can sneer every time another fake donation is announced to a good cause or when billionaires pledge to 'give away' all their money. Sneer for all its worth.<br/><br/>That accessibility also makes this book one of the most useful radicalizing tools out there. It's hard to read it and not want to tax all these people into oblivion ("Every billionaire is a policy failure.") or worse.

Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Successby Sylvia Ann Hewlett(3 ⭐)

A handful of fairly basic lessons artfully spun out into a book that's not absurdly boring. That is something of an achievement.<br/><br/>She did get me to lookup Margaret Thatcher's voice before and after, and that is dramatic enough of a change to be worth the price of admission here.

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangersby Kwame Anthony Appiah(3 ⭐)

An extremely weak sauce recipe for how to live together that in no way delves into what happens if there are fundamental conflicts between different (groups of) people. I like Appiah and that was barely enough to pull me through to the end of the book.<br/><br/>Can we please get the same book but without the relativism? There is a ladder of human development, certain (sub)cultures are worse than others. It's not that hard, people!<br/><br/>I am glad I did get to that end because there he takes a bunch of pages to specifically tear apart the tepid moralism of Peter Singer and I'm glad that he does.

Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guysby Joe Coulombe(3 ⭐)

I really enjoyed the storytelling and the lots of odd details. What detracted for me was the odd structure of the book, the lack of depth in any part of it and the fact that I've never been in a Trader Joe store so that magic was almost entirely lost on me.

Die Ringelsocken-Strolcheby Cornelia Franz(2 ⭐)

The kids keep saying this book is boring and they’re right. Every story revolves around the kids in the book doing something they’re not supposed to do and then something going wrong and them being admonished for it. That’s such a thin premise for such a big book.<br/><br/>It’s a shame too because it looks like it’s put together with care but a total lack of inspiration with the story (or as is often the case a condescension for the target audience) makes this a pass.

Mila spricht!: Ein Bilderbuch zum selektiven Mutismusby Babette Bürgi Wirth(3 ⭐)

No clue why we have this book. Kids were fascinated. A bit overly didactic.

Über Menschenby Juli Zeh

“Juli Zeh meint die Ukrainer*innen sollten sich mit russischer Besatzung arrangieren und schreibt dann Bücher über Leute, die's nicht im Prenzlauer Berg aushalten.” —Franca Parianen

Rosamund, die Starkeby Martin Waddell(3 ⭐)

Decent enough story but prefer de Ridster.

It's Not About the Burqaby Mariam Khan(2 ⭐)

Some of the essays in the beginning were good but later on they got increasingly poorly written and very preachy. It’s disappointing that none of these people is much interested in material reflection.<br/><br/>Finally, for somebody not part of British culture this book is not that interesting. Most of the issues are South Asian and similarly from British colonial history.

Hier kommt Mama Muhby Jujja Wieslander(1 ⭐)

Unbelievably bad.

Die verflixte Erfindungby Martin Widmark(3 ⭐)

I’m not exactly sure that this is what children are looking for. An obese queer couple in a traditional codependent relationship have to face reality when one of them creates a Demon Seed-like robotic creature that takes over their lives.<br/><br/>Techno horror is fine but why in a children’s book?

Der kleine Troll Tojokby Paul Maar(2 ⭐)

This looked good with an art style somewhat reminiscent of Janosch's books but it's severely dated. The story is flat and repetitive without much merit (the troll and the cat get what amounts to a booty call from another troll and cat across the forest) and at times even offensive.

Herbst im Holunderwegby Martina Baumbach(4 ⭐)

The kid’s gang of Holunderweg 7 is a current favorite mostly because of the kids’ exploits and the book taking the kids’ lives seriously.

Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!by Miran Lipovača(3 ⭐)

The book contains a bunch of slurs and other very poorly chosen jokes that have not aged well.

Gezond zijn is fijn!by Geef een kinderboek(1 ⭐)

An atrociously bad book with a "message" of how to stay healthy. It's a crime to distribute this to kids especially disadvantaged ones.

Baltasis Dramblys: Tolimų kraštų istorijosby Kęstutis Kasparavičius(1 ⭐)

Total garbage. Can’t read this to kids.

Little Fires Everywhereby Celeste Ng(5 ⭐)

The story is the story but what sets this apart is the absurd demonstration of writing skill. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a current author who can touch this.

Waldtage!by Stefanie Höfler(2 ⭐)

Nice drawings. Shame of the utterly plain story.

Alfabetby Charlotte Dematons(4 ⭐)

Amazing spreads for each letter and they really do help us to learn the alphabet.

Fiete - Das verrückte Rennenby Ahoiii(3 ⭐)

Quick and dirty. Nothing special.

Kosmo & Klax Jahreszeitengeschichtenby Alexandra Helmig(1 ⭐)

No redeeming qualities and an insult to parents and children alike.

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Societyby Eric A. Posner(4 ⭐)

"So you like markets? Let's push markets as far as they can go." —"Not like this!"<br/><br/>Most people who say they like markets use it as an excuse to cover up their desire to maintain entrenched power relations, monopolies and inequality.<br/><br/>I like many of the proposals in this book but more than that I think the way of thinking about society, coordination and exchange is very valuable. I've seen a talk by Weyl where he supersedes many of the ideas in the book based on new evidence and research.<br/><br/>Is there a path towards realizing something like the COST? Probably not working in the tired democracies that we are stuck with at the moment, but most of the institutions that we have are shearing to the point of breaking anyway. Once they break for real, it's nice to have alternative ways of organizing ready to go.

Pluk van de Pettefletby Annie M.G. Schmidt(5 ⭐)

This might be one of the best children's books around. It's criminal that it isn't more widely known.

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real Worldby Marcus Buckingham(4 ⭐)

I did not expect that a quick and breezy read such as this one would be one of the better management books I read in the past years.<br/><br/>Nine Lies About Work manages to pack original research and case studies that are both novel and unexpected into a story about work, meaning and life. Many books like this regurgitate the same tired cases (Buurtzorg anyone?) and the same Malcolm Gladwell/Freakonomics-sourced long-debunked science and turn that into a quick publication.<br/><br/>I would recommend this book fully for both managers and employees at companies. One word of caution though: the more 'lies' about work this book helps you identify at your current workplace, the more likely it becomes that you will start looking for a new job.

Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Developmentby Jim Blandy(4 ⭐)

A huge book that covers all the ground but unfortunately is extremely thorough in certain areas that are not very interesting (the language reference stuff) and glosses over the parts such as systems programming which people new to Rust and the area may have the most trouble with.<br/><br/>The question then is: What would be a good introduction into systems programming and is it up to a book like this to provide it? I think that if you claim that Rust is the prime language for that style of programming, you should provide more of an introduction to it and point people to further reading if they want to get deeper into it.

Provos: Ira And Sinn Feinby Peter Taylor(3 ⭐)

A thorough overview of the years of the Provos which is only occasionally gripping. A lot of the time it's a fairly dry recounting of events and leadership struggles within the IRA. It also does not provide that much insight into Sinn Fein past or present.<br/><br/>Most interesting is reading about the high profile assassinations and the massive London bombings. It's hard to imagine that this level of warfare was common on the islands if you were born in the eighties like myself.

Pride and Prejudiceby Jane Austen(3 ⭐)

A very decent romance novel which didn't appeal much to me most probably because I'm not a teenage girl.</p><p>The buildup is long winded and the book is lacking for any real plot or suspense until at least halfway through.</p><p>The second half is interesting and cute with some nice writing and some intimate moments. Still I'm not a fan of Austen's treatment and her judgement in which parts of the story to write out and which to gloss over.

The Three-Body Problemby Liu Cixin(3 ⭐)

Oddly uncompelling for something heralded as the best of modern science fiction.

Wer hat den Lebkuchen stibitzt?by Maria Stalder(3 ⭐)

Nothing huge, just a charming story and art style.

The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adriàby Ferran Adrià(2 ⭐)

The quantities don’t make any sense in this book nor do the tastes most of the time. I don’t know who this is for but for a families it’s wholly unsuitable. It should also be subtitled “fish cooking with Ferran Adria” since half the dishes have fish in them.<br/><br/>(I checked and more people comment that the measurements are totally off. In short: if you like this book, you probably didn’t try to cook anything from it and have it lying on your coffee table with all the other Phaidon crap.)

Kan ik er ook nog bij ?: een prentenboek van Loek Koopmansby Loek Koopmans(3 ⭐)

Standaard verzamelsprookje gered door de mooie illustraties.

Julián Is a Mermaidby Jessica Love(4 ⭐)

Not much meat to the story but a truly stunning art style.

Between Tick and Tockby Louise Greig(4 ⭐)

Lovely book but written a bit too poetically for me to live translate from German to Dutch.

Stella, Star of the Seaby Marie-Louise Gay(4 ⭐)

Mesmerizing, poetic and lovely art style.

Les Voyages extraordinaires de Facteur Sourisby Marianne Dubuc(2 ⭐)

Milking the postmouse’s success doesn’t bear the desired fruit. You might even say that on one of his underwater excursions our mouse jumps the shark.

Die Seefahrt nach Rioby James Krüss(1 ⭐)

Awful sexist racist stuff and not even fun for all that.

Understanding the Highly Sensitive Child: Seeing an Overwhelming World through Their Eyesby James Williams(2 ⭐)

Nicely done introduction to the subject but no more than that.

Wild Symphonyby Dan Brown(1 ⭐)

In the German translation this is horrendous, cheesy and fully unsuitable for children. The illustrations are nice but that’s it.

Alles war Seeby Lorenz Pauli(4 ⭐)

It's been a while since I read a children's book that I liked this much. The style of the illustrations is deeply pleasant and the telling amusingly aloof. The story itself is common but elevated enough.

Frau Hoppes erster Schultagby Agnès Bertron-Martin(1 ⭐)

Unbelievably boring and bad.