My parents store our old belongings on the attic of their house, and when I was in the Netherlands I spend an afternoon going through them. I found a lot of the books that I had really missed in the last 2 years.
In the week that I was in Holland I also bought a couple of books. Mainly about Dutch recent politics and some nostalgic literature.
I brought some of the books with me in my luggage, but there were way too many to bring all of them. I sent the books by economy mail from the Netherlands to Durham (8.4 kg/18 pounds). The books had been in transit for 8 weeks, but they arrived on Saturday in good shape.
Books I brought:
Colloquial Bulgarian
Thinking the Unthinkable
Founding Brothers
Bulgarian for Foreigners
The Federalist
The COnstitution of the United States
The Words We Live By
Economist Style Guide
The Globe, the Science of Discworld
The Color of Magic (in Bulgarian)
New books, that I bought when I was in the Netherlands:
Tuesday afternoon Sasha left for Bulgaria. She's visiting her parents in the period between her job at the bank and before the study year starts.
Yesterday evening I went to the library in Durham. Getting there took me a while. Although I was on the right road I missed the library building and I couldn't turn around easily as it was a one way street. Anyway, I found it and registered as a new member. It's not as nice as the library in Arlington and quite a bit smaller, but a library is a library and I enjoyed browsing the books.
This afternoon we went to Arlington's central library. We saw on internet that it's located two metro stops away from our house, but the weather was very nice so we went for a long walk. It was really sunny today and not so cold anymore.
The library is south of Clarendon, and while we were walking we saw that we were entering suburbs: lower houses, wider street, more gardens; different than the part of Arlington where we live which consists mainly of apartment buildings. It wasn't hard to find the street of the library: all streets are ordered alphabetically, as someone on the street who we asked mentioned.
It's really fun to be a tourist in the area where you live: so many interesting things and you don't have to travel to see them. There weren't a lot of people walking where we went -- mainly cars.
We subscribed to the library, which is free if you have an address in Arlington. It's a fairly large library, but not as big as the one in Haarlem.
A painting on a building in Clarendon that we saw while walking to the library.
Entrance of the library.
Downstairs were the most popular books, in smaller bookshelves. Upstairs (no picture) had a more traditional library layout.
We spent a wonderful afternoon in Barnes & Nobles last Saturday. Sasha and I both needed a new book, and we spent 2,5 hours walking around, reading a bit, looking at books, drinking coffee... Very relaxing.
We had restricted ourselves to buy just one book per person. It's so tempting to get a lot of books, but if we did so we wouldn't have a reason to go the bookstore in a long time, which wouldn't be nice.
Sasha found a really nice biography, "Nicholas and Alexandra", on the last royals in Russia. I'm afraid I cheated a bit in my choice. It's one book, fair enough, but it will keep me busy for quite a while. I bought the complete works of William Shakespeare, over 1200 pages of text, in a beautiful edition.
I don't really know Shakespeares work, and I felt that's a shame. I've only read Macbeth, in secondary school, and didn't pay a lot of attention to it then.
Drinking coffee and making a selection of all the books we like.
When I arrived in Middenmeer after moving from Haarlem, I discovered a small book in the attic. It was a very quick book to read; I was done in three hours but certainly very nice. The book has a very optimistic tone, humoristic and with faith in humanity.
I specifically liked the articles on the weddings the author describes. Very funny and I'm looking forward to read the other bestseller by this other, "Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten".
The Cryptonomicon is a something like a hit amongst programmers and computer scientists. When I was in the plane to New York somebody even recognized me as a programmer because I was reading it.
I enjoyed reading the book. It was a pleasant mixture of treasure hunting, cryptology and World War II.
The book was a present Joris gave me for my 25th birthday.
Read it again in August 2014, during our trip to the Netherlands.
I spent the evening reading, including some articles for Chess. Technical subjects I want to know some more about: Hibernate, and especially Java Server Faces. Reading at home is nicer and more effective than at Chess.
There is a very satisfying pile with books on my desk now, all waiting to be read. They are presents for my graduation and books I brought from the States. A very rich feeling.
A compilation of small articles written by people in or about the Netherlands throughout the ages. It's a very nice selection, with stories of ordinary people but also from Ceasar and Casanova for example.
It was a present from my grandmother for my 24st birthday.
My parents store our old belongings on the attic of their house, and when I was in the Netherlands I spend an afternoon going through them. I found a lot of the books that I had really missed in the last 2 years.
This afternoon we went to Arlington's central library. We saw on internet that it's located two metro stops away from our house, but the weather was very nice so we went for a long walk. It was really sunny today and not so cold anymore.
Exhibition. 
We spent a wonderful afternoon in Barnes & Nobles last Saturday. Sasha and I both needed a new book, and we spent 2,5 hours walking around, reading a bit, looking at books, drinking coffee... Very relaxing.
I spent the evening reading, including some articles for Chess. Technical subjects I want to know some more about: Hibernate, and especially Java Server Faces. Reading at home is nicer and more effective than at Chess.