In the midst of the apple orchards in the fertile land of Maine lies a peculiar world, where the odyssey of Homer Wells begins. After several traumatic experiences with his adoptive parents, he becomes a permanent part of the St. Cloud's orphanage. As the oldest orphan, he learns to help young and older women with their concerns. His mentor is Wilbur Larch, the founder of the orphanage, a doctor who fights his own crusade against evil, often at odds with the law. Throughout the story, we follow Homer’s journey, his desire to be useful, his apprenticeship at the orphanage, his adult life in a cider house, his strange bond with his best friend's wife, and his constant departures and returns. The novel explores themes of love, loss, and the search for identity in an environment filled with challenges and contradictions.
Rien Verhoef Books






Atonement
- 371 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Risk
- 314 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Adventure fiction. Suspense fiction. This thriller involves a kidnapping of an amateur jockey and accountant and is written by the former National Hunt Jockey and author of many thrillers.
Lolita
- 362 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Humbert Humbert, a European intellectual adrift in America, is a middle aged college professor. Haunted by memoires of a lost adolescent love, he falls outrageously (and eventually illegally) in lust with his landlady's twelve year old daughter, Dolorez Haze.Obseesed, he'll do anything, will commit any crime to posses his Lolita. But once Lolita belongs to Humbert, once he has got what he wants, what next? and what of Lolita? how long is she willing to be possessed?
Waterland
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy. " Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving.... Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity.... A fine and original work." --"Los Angeles Times"
Rainbow Pocketbooks: Boetekleed
- 507 pages
- 18 hours of reading
Het is 1935. Briony en Cecilia Tallis, twee zussen uit een rijke Engelse familie, brengen met hun familie de zomer door op een landgoed. Het lijkt een normale hete zomerdag te gaan worden, maar als Briony haar zus en hun vriend Robbie bespiedt bij de fontein van het landhuis krijgt dit voorval door haar verbeeldingskracht grote gevolgen. Als later op de dag een misdaad gepleegd wordt beschuldigt ze Robbie hiervan. Dit heeft desastreuze gevolgen en verandert het leven van alledrie voorgoed.
A brilliant, emotionally wrenching new novel from the author of Atonement and Amsterdam. Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, renowned for her fierce intelligence and sensitivity is called on to try an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeen-year-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life. Time is running out. She visits the boy in hospital - an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. But it is Fiona who must ultimately decide whether he lives or dies and her judgement will have momentous consequences for them both.
Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man- a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a grow
Bat Katanga keert, na in Cambridge ter bestrijding van zijn impulsiviteit wiskunde en economie te hebben gestudeerd, terug naar zijn vaderland Oeganda. In een helikopter heeft hij zijn eerste en enige sollicitatiegesprek met generaal Samson Bazooka, minister van Energie en Communicatie onder het regime van Idi Amin. Bazooka heeft hem nodig om orde op zaken te stellen in het ministerie. Maar deze selfmade man die intellectuelen wantrouwt, zet zijn voormalig liefje Victoria op Bat om hem in de gaten te houden.
On Chesil beach
- 106 pages
- 4 hours of reading
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student who unexpectedly won her heart
Twee chimpansees
- 135 pages
- 5 hours of reading
Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services. The year is 1972. Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase, but the fight goes on, especially in the cultural sphere. Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent on a 'secret mission' which brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is inventing whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one. McEwan's mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue, love, and the invented self.
Bridge in het oerwoud
nieuwe bridgebelevenissen van de monniken in donker Afrika
- 75 pages
- 3 hours of reading
Rogers versie
- 344 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Een Amerikaanse theoloog krijgt een student op bezoek die met een computer het bestaan van God wil bewijzen.
De toekomst van het boek
Een voordracht door George Steiner gevolgd door een beschouwing van Cyrille Offermans
- 47 pages
- 2 hours of reading
In het New York van de jaren tachtig krijgt een student die in de tunnelbouw werkt, te maken met het feit dat zijn broer een huurmoordenaar is en lid is van een bende die de bouwwereld beheerst.









