I very nearly died trying a gorgonzola hagelslag spaghetti recipe for a review.

In total, I’ve written more than 50 reviews, the bulk of which have been published in the five years since I took over the task from Dutch News’ previous book reviewer.

But now my time has come to an end. Not my time on this earth (as far as I know) but my time penning reviews of books about the Netherlands, by Dutch authors, set in the Netherlands or books I want to read that have some vague Dutch connection.

For my final show, I have done a wrap of my favourites. The Dutch News boss asked me to list my top five from the past decade, but I am ungovernable and choose six.

The Diary Keepers
The only non-fiction on the list (though I recommend both The Embarrassment of Riches and A Brief Life of the City) The Diary Keepers combines excerpts from more than 2,000 personal diaries kept by the Dutch during World War II to create a compelling day-by-day narrative of the Holocaust in the Netherlands.

Author Nina Siegal delved into the journals in the collection of at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies), opened four days after the Netherlands was liberated in 1945.

It’s one thing to read about the death and destruction of the Holocaust in a history textbook, but the experience of reading about those horrors in the personal journals of those who experienced it is something else entirely. The book is fascinating and enlightening, and a must-read for anyone interested in the Netherlands and its history.

The Discomfort of Evening
Unflinching, sometimes grotesque, this prize-winning novel follows Jas, a 10-year-old growing up on a dairy farm in a strict Protestant household. When tragedy strikes, the family unravels and Jas blames herself, leading to increasingly harmful behavior.

Published in Dutch 2018 and English in 2020, The Discomfort of Evening became the first Dutch novel to win the International Booker Prize and the author, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, was, at the age of 29, the youngest person of any nationality to take home the award.

Despite its horrors, The Discomfort of Evening is a beautiful book and poignantly describes a part of the Netherlands that is often hidden, both from outsiders and the Dutch alike.

The Twin
Is The Twin about a man caring (poorly) for his dying father while dreaming of another life in Denmark? Or about a man constrained by the responsibilities of family and rural life? Or is it about a man who really likes donkeys?

Dutch writer Gerbrand Bakker’s debut novel The Twin (Boven is het stil in Dutch) is about all of those things. Published in Dutch in 2006 and in English in 2008, it won the €100,000 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative awards for English-language literature.

Many Dutch classics may not feel very Dutch to the reader, but The Twin does an excellent job reflecting parts of Dutch society and life foreigners who live in the Netherlands have come to be familiar with. Dutch society has a strong sense of family unity, the Dutch can be very slow to reveal themselves to others and the countryside is very flat and grey, which can be both reflected stunningly in Golden Age landscape paintings and desolately as in Bakker’s The Twin.

The Discovery of Heaven
I couldn’t write this list without including at least one powerhouse classic. The Discovery of Heaven opens with two angels having a conversation about getting the 10 Commandments back. It turns out, for reasons not explained, the angel ordered to fetch them can’t go to earth so must resort to a Rube Goldberg-esque series of events to ensure the tablets are returned, including both World Wars.

In essence, the story follows the lives of two men, Onno and Max, whose friendship ultimately leads to a son, Quinten, who, at the end of the book, ascends to heaven to take back the tablets – having taken 905 pages to do so.

Harry Mulisch is impressively good at creating dynamic characters with complications and quirks who genuinely interact with one another. His dialogue, in particular, feels so realistic you think you might just be sitting in a cafe, next to those two men, as they argue over philosophy and politics.

The Discovery of Heaven is much more enjoyable than many of the other Dutch classics I have tackled and, most importantly, it feels quintessentially Dutch. Just skim the parts where the angels are talking.

The Dinner
If you’re going to read just one work of Dutch fiction, let Herman Koch’s The Dinner be it. The novel, published in English in 2012, follows four main characters during a single summer evening’s dinner. A former history teacher, Paul and his wife, Claire meet Paul’s brother, politician Serge and his wife Babette for a meal. The restaurant in the book is not specified but it is rumoured to be de Kas in Amsterdam.

During the meal – with the chapters entitled ‘aperitif’, ‘main course’ and so-on – it transpires that each couple has a 15-year-old son and the boys have committed a terrible act. So what will the parents do?

It’s a quick, uncomplicated and entertaining read – perfect for a holiday or lazy day on the sofa, but still manages to illustrate Dutch society and in particular the nuances of class in The Netherlands.

The Safe Keep
The Safe Keep centers on Isabel, who lives alone in a house purchased by her uncle in the run up to World War II. She’s nearly 30 and is feeling the pressure to marry, in part because the house will go to her brother Louis, when he finally settles down. Her other brother Hendrick is written out of the inheritance for being gay.

The philandering Louis discovers his latest fling Eva needs a place to stay for the summer and deposits the girl with his sister, promising to return in a month to retrieve her. Isabel, who has still unable to move on from her mother’s death several years earlier, resents the intrusion and becomes increasingly paranoid as objects around the house go missing. As the two live alongside each other, they each discover things about one another and their shared history.

The Netherlands is rife with books grappling with the impact of WWII, mostly famously Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl and the author, Yael van der Wouden, once wrote a viral essay about not reading it. The Safe Keep, set in 1961, looks forward to the world the war has left in its wake.

The novel intertwines Isabel’s personal awakening with everyone around her confronting or ignoring their historical legacy. It is a brilliant exploration of the indelible impact WWII has had on Dutch society with complicated characters who come to life through wonderful prose.