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.

’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|

Book Review: Dream Count

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka's bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in [...]

Sophie2025-02-24T14:36:31+01:00Tags: Book review, Book Reviews, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Damla, Fiction, Sophie|

Bookbits for 26 February 2025

By Sophie Egad! Another Bookbits in the same month as the last one?! Yep, the first week of March I'm off, so thought I'd get this in early. ^^ - Well, if you didn't love Little Free Libraries already, a recent study in the US shows that these treasure boxes really benefit [...]

Sophie2025-02-25T20:24:34+01:00Tags: Anne Tyler, Awards, Black History Month, Bookbits, bookish romances, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Current Affairs, Interviews, lists, little free libraries, reading critically, sff bestiary, Sophie|

Bookbits for 5 February 2025

By Sophie If these Bookbits appear a little disjointed, please forgive me: I've been counting books for the past 3 days on account of inventory and may still have little flashbacks (2-15-3 times). - Perhaps a little unsurprisingly, Publishers Weekly reports a spike in US sales of dystopian novels in January 2025, [...]

Sophie2025-02-04T21:56:02+01:00Tags: Awards, Black History Month, Bookbits, Dystopian, fallen heroes, Interviews, Jane Austen, lists, literary puzzle, Sophie|

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