Best of
Belgium

2009

Belgium and Luxembourg


Antony Mason - 2009
    Packed with photographs, illustrations, and maps of Belgium and Luxembourg, the guide includes in depth coverage of the region's best attractions, such as fine art in Brussels, the canals of Bruges, battlefields of Flanders, and the best castles, museums, and architecture throughout the two countries. Illustrated food features about local produce and the classic dishes of Belgium and Luxembourg are highlighted, and the best hotels and restaurants in Belgium and Luxembourg have been selected by resident experts. With sections on Flanders and Wallonia, specially devised walks, scenic and thematic tours, and comprehensive background on everything from Tintin to tapestry, not forgetting the best of Belgium beer, this guide provides the insider knowledge that every traveler will need. It includes family entertainment in Belgium, regional driving tours, cutaways, and floor plans for all major attractions as well as sights, markets, and festivals listed town by town.Don't miss a thing on your vacation with the "DK Eyewitness Travel" guidebook to Belgium and Luxembourg.HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Packed with photographs, illustrations, and maps Cutaways and floor plans of all the major sights 3D aerial views of the city's most interesting districts Huge selection of hotels, restaurants, stores, and entertainment venues Specially devised walking tours, special events infoNow includes a new durable, oversized pullout map with useful transportation information, a distance chart, a street and sight index, and practical information for getting around the city.

James Ensor


Anna Swinbourne - 2009
    Anthony," now in The Museum of Modern Art's collection, established the artist as one of the boldest painters of all his contemporaries. Ensor (1860-1949) was a major figure in the Belgian avant-garde of the late nineteenth century and an important precursor to the development of Expressionism in the early twentieth, yet his work is underappreciated in the United States, and far too little seen. This striking volume, published on the occasion of Ensor's major 2009 exhibition in New York, gives the artist the attention he so greatly deserves. It presents approximately 90 works, organized thematically, examining Ensor's Modernity, his innovative and allegorical approach to light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance and, finally, his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty and role-playing. Works in the full range of his media--painting, printing and drawing--are presented in an overlapping network of themes and images to produce a complete picture of this daring body of art. The most comprehensive volume on the artist available in English, this remarkable, scholarly volume reveals Ensor as a socially engaged and self-critical artist involved with the issues of his times and contemporary debates on the very nature of Modernism.

Wipers: A Soldier's Tale From the Great War


Jeff Simmons - 2009
    Not familiar with the proper pronunciation of "Ypres," (EE-pruh), the Allied soldiers called the sector "Wipers." The Allies took thousands of casualties daily there from 1914 to 1918. Unable to break the German line, a plan was made to dig 5 miles of tunnels under No Man's Land, planting charges, and blowing up the enemy from below. This novel follows a British miner-turned-soldier and his unlikely companion: a mischievous, wisecracking soldier who was a magician in civilian life and joined the army under shady circumstances. Their struggle to survive is often tragic, yet often humorous. The story climaxes with the tunnel attack and the shocking aftermath. Ultimately, it shows war is not glorious; it ruins lives, even among those who survive.

One Step Ahead of Hitler: A Jewish Child's Journey through France


Fred Gross - 2009
    In the late 1980s, he asked his mother to tell him the story of his family's flight from the German invasion of Belgium and the Nazi policies that would become the Holocaust. Later, his two older brothers added their memories. But this story is not simply an account of the years spent one step ahead of Hitler. It is about a little boy then grown man coming to know his own story and realizing the tenuousness of memory. Most of the Grosses' flight takes place in France during its defeat and collaboration with the Nazis, rounding up more than 75,000 Jews for deportation to the death camps. Gross and his family made it through these anguished years because of their fortitude and ingenuity and the help of brave men and women of other faiths, reverently referred to as The Righteous Among the Nations, who risked their lives standing up to their collaborationist government. One Step Ahead of Hitler is a story of survival told in words and in photographs of a journey beginning in Antwerp and ending with his freedom in America. "It is an important memoir," David P. Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and author of Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, writes in the foreword. "Some of the most shameful moments of German, French, Swiss-and human-history are recorded here, not for the first time, but in a deeply personal way by someone who experienced their effects as a small child."