(The lovely image comes from www.ilustris.pl. It's a site stuffed with beautiful, "pure", poetic images and animations, that always make me smile.)

Who am I? Dutch, student of Linguistics, and used to be a fanatic reader. Anything with letters would do really. In the past few years I haven't read as much as I'd like, but BookCrossing has definitely been giving a new impulse.
In any case, I love the BookCrossing community and philosophy, although I have only released a few books into the wild so far. The thought of just leaving a book somewhere is great but still a bit scary, like shoplifting in reverse...

Favourite reads:
I love reading fantasy, although I haven't read a lot of different authors yet. One of my favourite writers by far is Terry Pratchett, I only need a few more Discworld-books to have the series so far complete.
Other favourites include: Stephen King, Nicci French, Tolkien, Douglas Adams.

I very much enjoyed reading literature (Dutch, English and a bit German and French) in high school, but when we had to read lots of books in the final years, the joy got less and less, resulting in a total lack of literature-reading in the first years after high school. I have plans to get back in there however... And BC should help.
Some of my favourite Dutch writers: K. Schippers, Doeschka Meijsing, Toon Tellegen.

Favourite childhood read: Neverending Story - Michael Ende. No doubt about that one...


Currently reading:
BULKBOEKbundel - various
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

To be read/continued soon:
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
In de geest van Tolkien - various
De vrouw bestaat niet - Maarten 't Hart
De ontdekking van de hemel - Harry Mulisch
and many others...

Bookrings/-rays I joined:
(replaced the long list with summary:)
I joined 28 rings & rays, of which 9 were international, and 19 Dutch. 4 of them were books where the participants themselves wrote/coloured/contributed something. 2 of the 28 rings & rays stranded or got lost somewhere before they reached me, the rest reached me and continued on their merry ways afterwards.

Bookring I started:
De Kleine Prins - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Made it home safe.)

Bookray I started:
Angels&Demons - Dan Brown (Stranded somewhere.)

Read in 2008:
The Snow - Adam Roberts
Sheer Abandon - Penny Vincenzi
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett
Sailor Song - Ken Kesey
Ilium - Dan Simmons
Thud - Terry Pratchett
Honour Among Thieves - Jeffrey Archer
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
De nacht achterna - Beryl Markham
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
De verdronken tuin - Carol Goodman
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Making Money - Terry Pratchett
Cassatie - Scott Turow

Read in 2009:
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells
De Einstein code - Adam Fawer
Voor een kans op geluk - An Rutgers van der Loeff
Bezeten van mij - Nicci French (accidental re-read)
The Eleventh Commandment - Jeffrey Archer
De Ontmaskering - Caleb Carr
The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett
De vondeling - Marie Hermanson
De vliegeraar - Khaled Hosseini
The Wizard and the Warlord - Elizabeth Boyer
Beds and Roses - Denys Roberts
Dune - Frank Herbert (re-read)
Twilight - Stephenie Meyer (in Dutch)