The UnDutchables - Softcover

Colin White & Laurie Boucke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1888580488 ISBN 13: 9781888580488

Publisher: White Boucke Pub, 2017

Synopsis

The UnDutchables takes an in-depth humorous look at daily Dutch life, quirks and character, with subjects varying from coffee drinking habits to child rearing, and from train travel to the toilet, and is considered by many foreigners to be a survival guide for living in the Netherlands. The book also includes information to help with learning the Dutch language, including appendices on Dutch idioms, expressions, and homonyms.

About this title

About the Author:

When The UnDutchables was first published in 1989, the authors had spent a cumulative total of 22 years living in the Netherlands. Colin White (British) lived and worked there for 8 years, and Laurie Boucke (American) lived and worked there for 15 years. Since moving away from the Netherlands, they regularly return for a visit to Holland. The book is updated every 3 or 4 years.

Review:

Nothing is more interesting than to see yourself through the eyes of an interested outsider. A very revealing treatise about us has been published, self-categorized by the publisher as non-fiction/humour: The UnDutchables: an observation of The Netherlands, its culture and its inhabitants, by Colin White & Laurie Boucke, who together lived with us in the swamp for 22 years. This book in a very exact yet funny way discloses all the secrets about us that we really would have preferred to keep to ourselves. In other words, they hang out the dirty linen.

We are adorned with the pet name cloggies, after clogs, the wooden shoes that we supposedly wear, but the authors have clearly looked much farther than wooden shoes and tulips. From the unnatural Dutch custom of finding it unfitting to answer the telephone with Hallo (an idiosyncrasy of mine, as you know) to our behavior in the tram, with garbage trucks, and in bed.

Even the way we stir sugar in our coffee has not escaped their notice and not until you read this book from cover to cover do you understand how much our behavior, that we consider as completely normal ourselves, borders on insanity for a non-Netherlander. Everything in it is true, and only the humor with which it is written makes it at all palatable for us. A fine little work, then, that will be around for years. --Johannes van Dam, Het Parool

About this edition

• Publisher: White Boucke Pub
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1888580488
• ISBN 13: 9781888580488
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312
• Illustrator: Rusty Haller