Maarten van der Werf Book order (chronological)

Ex-marinier Phil Klay brengt zijn lezers met Oorlogsverhalen naar de frontlinies van de oorlogen in Irak en Afghanistan, om ons te laten begrijpen wat daar gebeurd is en wat er geworden is van de soldaten die terugkeerden. Thema’s als hoop, schuld, angst en overlevingsdrang zijn nauw verweven in zijn personages, die te midden van alle chaos en verwoesting worstelen met de vraag wat de oorlog voor zin heeft. Phil Klay diende in Irak voor het US Marine Corps. In Oorlogsverhalen neemt hij de lezer mee naar de frontlinies van de oorlogen in Irak en Afghanistan, en weer terug naar hun families, die ‘geen idee hebben waar Fallujah ligt, waar drie leden van je peloton stierven’. In ‘Uitgezonden’ herinnert een soldaat zich hoe hij honden moest afschieten omdat ze de lichamen van zijn maten aanvraten; in ‘Lichamen’ vertelt een medewerker van het mortuarium hoe hij na de gevechten telkens de stoffelijke resten van zowel Amerikaanse als Irakese soldaten verzamelde; en in ‘Geld als wapensysteem’ krijgt een jonge officier de absurde opdracht om de levens van de Irakese bevolking te verbeteren met behulp van honkbal.

Chris Hunter says the bomb technician's prayer many times over during his tour of Iraq. His is the most dangerous job, in the most dangerous place in the world - to make safe the British sector in Iraq against some of the most technically advanced terrorists in the world. It is a 24/7 job - his team defuse over 45 bombs in the first two months alone. The people they're up against don't play by the Geneva Convention. For them, there are no rules, only results. Bombs, rockets, grenades, ambushes, booby traps - death by any means necessary. Welcome to the real Wild West. The job of Bomb Disposal Officer in Iraq is a lonely one. You are alone with the sound of your own breathing and the drumming of your heart in a protective suit in forty plus degrees of heat. The drawbridge has been pulled up behind you as you advance on your goal. Playtime is over. It's just you and the bomb. Just when life couldn't get any more dangerous for Chris Hunter, the stakes are raised again. Halfway through his tour, he is told the following: 'They want you dead, Chris. You and your team have captured their weaponry, you've fingered them with forensics, you've neutralised a shedload of their IEDs, and basically you're making Behadli and his lot look like cunts. They're out to kill the golden-haired bomb man in Basra.'

Twee vrienden (een journalist en een historicus) geven hun baan in China op om als eerste buitenlanders in de voetsporen van 'De Lange Mars' van het Rode Leger (1934-1935) te treden.

Madonna is the biggest female pop star in the world yet there is no serious biography of her, and no biography at all by a woman. Existing books are either gossipy style manuals or rehashes of press cuttings and they all end in 2001 with Madonna's marriage to Guy Ritchie. Yet her story hardly ends there, as evinced by her two record breaking world tours since then...Lucy O'Brien's extensive and well-researched biography will look at Madonna the artist, giving detailed analysis of her music, complete with revealing interviews with musicians and producers. It will focus on her cultural impact and the way she uses cinema, photography, visual art, theatre and dance in her work. It will take an in-depth look at how - and, more to the point, why - Madonna has reinvented herself through her twenties, thirties, forties and will no doubt do so again in her fifties. It will also look at the wider context and include interviews with similarly crusading female artists like Tori Amos, Laurie Anderson, Jeanette Winterson and Tracey Emin.This will be, quite simply, the definitive Madonna biography.