Sophie Archives

Bookseller, stock buyer, display maker & Girl Friday at ABC The Hague & ABC Leidschendam. Has been at ABC since almost the last millennium. Current sections under her care are YA, Politics & Current Affairs, Sports, Prizewinners, and Staff Choices. Loves any book that makes her think, learn, and look at life from a new angle, whatever genre. Cat person, feminist, easily bribed with Nutella, preferred state of being = barefoot in the garden.

ABC’s 100 Top Tips, part 3

By Sophie ABC's 100 Top Tips, part 3: Jimenez - Martine To celebrate our birthday this year (officially on 21 April but we're celebrating it on the weekend of 12 and 13 April) we decided to ask all of the ABC staff what their most memorable books were of the past [...]

Sophie2025-04-07T14:29:43+02:00Tags: ABC's 100 Top Tips, Bob, Bruna, Comics, Else, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Iris, Jilles, Jonna, Juno, Matty, Nature, Romance, Science Fiction, Shirley, Sophie, Staff Choices, Tiemen|

ABC’s 100 Top Tips, part 2

By Sophie ABC's 100 Top Tips, part 2: Eggers- Jemisin To celebrate our birthday this year (officially on 21 April but we're celebrating it on the weekend of 12 and 13 April) we decided to ask all of the ABC staff what their most memorable books were of the past 25 [...]

Sophie2025-04-07T14:40:59+02:00Tags: ABC's 100 Top Tips, Bruna, Cookbooks, Crime Fiction, Current Affairs, Fantasy, Fiction, History, Horror, Jonna, Lília, Lynn, Manga, Martijn, Matty, memoir, Mythology, Psychology, Romance, Science Fiction, Shirley, Sophie, Staff Choices, Tiemen|

ABC’s 100 Top Tips, part 1

By Sophie ABC's 100 Top Tips, part 1: Abercrombie - Dunstall To celebrate our birthday this year (officially on 21 April but we're celebrating it on the weekend of 12 and 13 April) we decided to ask all of the ABC staff what their most memorable books were of the past [...]

Sophie2025-04-07T21:04:51+02:00Tags: ABC's 100 Top Tips, Bella, Comics, Else, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels, History, Horror, Iris, IrisW, Jilles, Jonna, Juno, Lília, Martijn, Matty, Science Fiction, Simone, Social Science, Sophie, Staff Choices, Sywert, Tiemen, YA fiction, Young Adult|

’tism the season: recommendations for Autism Acceptance Month

By Naomi & Iris April is Autism Acceptance Month! This is the perfect moment to highlight some fiction titles featuring neurodivergent characters and autistic authors. If you're looking for some non-fiction books to better understand yourself, a loved one, or just learn more about autism, check out this blogpost. [...]

Naomi2025-04-04T15:03:48+02:00Tags: Alice Franklin, Autism, Autism Acceptance Month, General Fiction, India Holton, IrisW, Malka Older, Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Naomi, Romantasy, Sayaka Murata, Science Fiction, Sophie|

Bookbits for 1 April 2025

Written by Sophie Happy (?) April Fool's Day! Our Jouke's favorite day of the year, so good luck to everyone who has to work in the The Hague store today... - One of the biggest literary news stories to break over the past month was The Atlantic's article about Meta's pirating [...]

Sophie2025-04-01T11:54:02+02:00Tags: Awards, Banned Books, Bookbits, Damla, Interviews, Jane Austen, Jouke, lists, literary villains, podcast, Simone, Sophie|

Author Spotlight: Russell Shorto

By Sophie On Friday 4 April acclaimed author Russell Shorto will spend an afternoon at ABC Amsterdam to present and sign his newest release Taking Manhattan. He has close ties to the Netherlands, having lived here for quite a few years while he was researching his work and director of the [...]

Sophie2025-03-28T05:56:45+01:00Tags: ABC Events, Author Spotlight, History, Memoirs, Philosophy, Russell Shorto, Sophie|

Book review: The Story of Art Without Men

The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? Discover the glittering Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers [...]

Lilia2025-03-16T18:32:09+01:00Tags: Art, Feminist Writer, Feminist Writing, Katy Hessel, Sophie|

Reading along with the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize shortlist

Written by Sophie. Last year I wrote about reading along with the 2023 Ursula K. le Guin Prize shortlist. Reading along has become something of an annual literary pilgrimage for me since the prize's inception in 2022, so I'm writing about it again (and again as long as the ABC Blog [...]

Sophie2025-03-24T19:00:11+01:00Tags: alaya dawn johnson, alissa hattman, anne de marcken, Book review, Book Reviews, Emily Tesh, Fantasy, Fiction, micaiah johnson, Nghi Vo, premee mohamed, Prize winners, Readalong, Samantha Harvey, sarah cypher, Science Fiction, Sophie, Ursula K. Le Guin, vajra chandrasekera, Young Adult|

Series Spotlight: Monstress

The Monstress series is an on-going comic book series, currently on issue #55. The first 54 issues have been collected in nine omnibus editions, starting with Monstress, vol. 1: Awakening. Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, Monstress tells the [...]

Sophie2025-03-12T18:37:16+01:00Tags: Comics, Graphic Novel, Graphic Novels, Marjorie Liu, Monstress, Sana Takeda, Series Spotlight, Sophie|

March New Titles Quiz

By Sophie March is traditionally a month that features particularly many new fiction releases. We've rounded up 12 books being published in March - and 1 in April - that we are very excited about. Some of them are eagerly anticipated by many folks, others just by us, really, but we [...]

Sophie2025-02-27T16:23:16+01:00Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, New Releases, new titles, Non-Fiction, quiz, Romance, Science Fiction, Sophie, YA fiction|

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