Rien Verhoef Book order (chronological)

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.

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.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come and, unbeknownst to them both, the events of the evening will haunt them for the rest of their lives. 'McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us' Guardian

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.

Saturday, February 15th, 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 and filled with a growing unease. As he looks out at the night sky he is troubled by the state of the world - the impending war with Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat.

Begins on a windy summer's day in the Chilterns when the calm, organised life of Joe Rose is shattered by a ballooning accident. What happens is shocking and tragic, but strangely inco-sequential. The consequences come after, for that fatal accident brings Joe together briefly, with Jed Parry. Unknown to Rose, something passes between them.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta- the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these? 'A masterpiece. One of the great works of art of our age' Independent

Lolita is een van de meest omstreden romans van de twintigste eeuw. Humbert Humbert verruilt Europa voor de Verenigde Staten en trekt in bij een weduwe die een bijzonder aanminnige dochter heeft: Dolores. Humbert raakt meer dan gefascineerd door het jonge meisje: ‘Lolita, mijn levenslicht, mijn lendevuur.’ Hij trouwt met haar moeder om maar zo dicht mogelijk bij Lolita te kunnen zijn; zij doet hem denken aan het meisje op wie hij als jongen verliefd was. De baanbrekende roman Lolita veroorzaakte een schandaal en was van 1956 tot 1958 verboden in Frankrijk en de Verenigde Staten. Inmiddels wordt deze geestige, diepzinnige en sensuele roman gezien als een van de grootste literaire werken van de twintigste eeuw.

A certified public accountant and amateur steeplechase rider gets his chance to ride a famous horse in a top race and jumps into an obstacle-strewn course of trouble and danger.

Een Amerikaanse theoloog krijgt een student op bezoek die met een computer het bestaan van God wil bewijzen.