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Ester

About Ester

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So far Ester has created 49 blog entries.

ABC Staff Picks

Luke and Iris W. are back with our first ABC Staff Picks of 2023. Think cozy titles, biographies, science fiction novellas, a YA horror title and much more…. As the books buyer for Amsterdam’s film section, Luke chose two quite different memoirs from two famous authors. Both have similar themes about [...]

Signing the ABC papers over to us

written by Lynn Forty years ago this February, I landed at Baltimore airport in the worst snowstorm they’d had in 10 years. On the way to our host Larry Boltansky’s home, the freeway was closed and we had to shovel the station wagon out from under snow to get to a side [...]

2024-04-24T21:19:40+02:00Tags: , , , |

In Doubt: Date Mr. Darcy

It is almost Valentine’s Day! Need some 19th century dating advice? “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” Jane Austen taught us in her masterwork, Pride and Prejudice. Yes, in Ms. Austen’s time, the [...]

2023-02-13T12:07:46+01:00Tags: , , , |

Book-to-screen adaptations: The love edition

written by Lília With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we thought we’d home in on screen adaptations of romantic fiction. Because who hasn’t heard of or watched – maybe many times! –adaptions of Jane Austen’s books such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Emily Brontë’s [...]

Black History Month at ABC: What to read

written by Natalia It is February, which means it’s Black History Month in the United States and Canada. Black History Month was first introduced in 1969 and has been celebrated nationwide since the mid-seventies. This month was introduced by Black educators as a way to celebrate Black culture and the [...]

2023-02-01T11:49:49+01:00Tags: , , |

How we work

The book buyer: Lynn Kaplanian-Buller interviews Lília Visser Lilia is a seasoned ABC book buyer. Asked how she would define a good one, she says the most important characteristic for book buyers is listening to customers. Besides that, a book buyer must keep an eye on what sells, its [...]

2023-01-25T17:01:46+01:00Tags: , , |

Blind Book Date

It’s confirmed: our bestselling title at ABC Leidschendam in 2022 was the Blind Book Date! So what, exactly, is a Blind Book Date, aka BBD? It’s a curated title we gift wrap with only a few clues—just enough to get people interested in the story. It is indeed a blind [...]

2023-01-18T17:02:07+01:00Tags: |

ABC Anecdotes: Postcards in Amsterdam

written by Lynn The ABC started in 1972 after Mitch Crossfield and Sam Boltansky, who knew each other from Baltimore, came to Amsterdam in 1971 and saw the lines of English-speaking tourists outside Madame Tussaud's on the Kalverstraat, then one of the busiest shopping streets in Europe. They went to the jewelry [...]

2023-01-19T18:03:15+01:00Tags: , , |

Folklore & Fairy tale

Witches and the Folklore of Poisonous Plants written by Emma V Some of the most striking scenes of witchcraft in literature picture witches bent over a bubbling cauldron—from the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth tossing in ingredient after ingredient to cause “double, double toil and trouble”, to Harry, [...]

2023-01-13T13:56:45+01:00Tags: , , |
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