However Breng does not run trains on Sundays, the day of free travel. Since 2008 the book week gift is also valid in the trains of Arriva, Veolia, Connexxion and Syntus.įive years later the book week gift becomes valid in the trains of the (then) new company Breng. One of the promotianal activities is one day of free travel in the NS trains (within the Netherlands) during the Book Week ('Boekenweek') for passengers on presentation of the book week gift. Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) are the main sponsor of CPNB since 2001. Since 2008 the book week gift is also given to new members of (some) public libraries. This minimum amount had increased through the years. It's organised by 'Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek' (CPNB, Collective Propaganda for the Dutch Book).ĭutch booksellers give their customers the book week gift for free during the Book Week when they buy Dutch books for a minimum amount of money.

Elisabeth finds it increasingly hard to lie to her daughter to keep up appearances, and her daughter reconciles herself to her fate: ‘Sometimes you start doing something even when you know it will never be enough.The Book Week is an annual event, since 1932, for the promotion of Dutch books. Coco’s relationship with her egotistical lover, the chatter at the hairdresser’s, a man who sings John Denver lyrics phonetically and an awkward meal at a Chinese restaurant with Coco’s stepmother – all are shrouded in a permanent haze of melancholy and alienation.Ĭraving is an animatedly written, tragicomic novel in which the author is not afraid of putting her finger on the most painful places, whether they have to do with alcoholism, obesity or loveless sex. Nowhere do we read in so many words that they are unhappy, but it is clear from everything they experience. Both are conscious of futility and mortality, and they do not become close even after Coco decides to move in with her mother. We follow the lives of mother and daughter by turns. The next moment, the mother’s bicycle wheel gets caught in the tram rails before she wobbles off to the hairdresser’s, with whom she has the same short conversations every time, again about her illness. They part rather uneasily (‘We must ring each other. It is a message her daughter receives with a mixture of disbelief and indifference. She takes the opportunity to share some bad news she has terminal cancer and not long to live. Elisabeth divorced Coco’s father long ago, and contact with her daughter has been scant ever since. The accidental nature of their meeting is indicative of their estrangement. At the start of the novel, Elisabeth and her adult daughter Coco happen upon each other in the city, on opposite sides of the street.

Broer by Esther Gerritsen