The Content Reader

During our 17 years in Brussels we have never visited Keukenhof,  the Garden of Europe as it is known. Well, we actually passed by once but it was the wrong time of the year so we didn't see any flowers. Mid-April (depending on the weather as always is the best time to go there to see the tulips but also a lot of other flowers. On top of this I can tell you that we were not alone. It is amazing to see all these people in all different angles, standing, leaning, bending, kneeing, sitting, lying and I don't know what angle to try to get a good photo of the flowers. People use not only cameras (some bring their tripods with them so it looks really professional) but also ipads and smart phones. It seems to be a mecca for photographers. Well, we took a few photos as well. My husband did most and he tends to inflate them. But that is the luxury of the digital photo cameras today. I delete some of them discreetly afterwards! Flowers in various arrangements Keukenhof means ...

This is a review for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2014 hosted by Historical Tapestry   (historicaltapestry.blogspot.be/) I have got a new favourite historical fiction writer. From somewhere I ran into her name and found a teaser of this book. It sounded interesting and furthermore on her web-site (http://www.jgharlond.name/) she referred to two non-fiction books as background material, the Tulipomania  by Mike Dash and The Entity  by Eric Frattini. I actually read  Tulipomania  before I read her fictional book. As you have seen from another post on this site it is a fascinating story. Harlond has used this true story as a set up for her fictional story about Ludovico de Portovenere, Marcos and Alina. It is a dashing story set between 1635-37 in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and England, of ships, pirates, merchants, tulip lovers, man and women trying to survive in a time of war and uncertainty. Spain has lost its hold on the Netherlands and are -...

Since we are popping over to Amsterdam for the weekend I thought it would be interesting to read something connected to Holland. Recently I found a reference to 'Tulipomania' by historian Mike Dash as a reference book for an historical novel. Tulipomania is the name for a period in the Dutch Golden Age in the beginning of the 17th century during which prices for tulip bulbs which had then recently been introduced to Europe reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. Do we see here a forerunner to modern share markets?  "The Viceroy", from a 1637 Dutch catalog. Price between 3,000 and 4,150  guilders (florins)  depending on size. A skilled craftsman at the timeearned about 300 guilders a year. Just starting it and it is bound to be a fascinating book. During the years 1633-37 there was a boom in the prices of tulip bulbs than can only be compared to the frenzy of shares today. Fortunes were made and lost over night. People paid more for a tu...