Thanks to everyone who sent a mail to win@abc.nl for the chance to win free Lincoln tickets!  The lucky winners are:

• Dennis Buijs
• Nieke Aalders-Warffemius
• Nico Schouws

Congratulations!   You will be contacted by someone from Brandmkrs today or tomorrow about  this prize draw. And thanks once again to Warner Netherlands and IMAX Pathé for providing the free tickets.

The answer to question 1 was President Obama, and question 2 yielded the following favorite history books (proving that the term ‘history’ is wide open to interpretation ).  I also included one of your answers in full, because the story that came with the book title was too irresistible not to share.

• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America – Erik Larson
• Pegasus Bridge – Stephen E. Ambrose
• Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World – John Pilger
• A Natural History of the Senses – Diane Ackerman
• HHhH – Laurent Binet
• Shakespeare – Bill Bryson
• A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
• At Home – Bill Bryson
• The Island at the Center of the World – Russell Shorto
• Multatuli – Dik van der Meulen (in Dutch)
• A History of Finland – Henrik Meinander
• The Navajos – ?
• Enemy at the Gates – William Craig
• Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling – Ross King
• Reclaiming History – Vincent Bugliosi
• The Liberation Trilogy (An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle and – in May 2013 – The Guns at Last Light) – Rick Atkinson
• Susan Anthony Slept here: A Guide To American Women’s Landmarks – Lynn Sherr (no longer in print but available through our supplier of second-hand books)
• The Warburgs – Ron Chernow
• Fall of Giants and Winter of the World – Ken Follett
• The Soong Sisters – Emily Hahn
• The Story of Art – E. H. Gombrich
• X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe – Michael Mallory
• Pompeii – Mary Beard
• A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X
• History of French and Italian Fashion – ?
• The Peaceable Kingdom – Jan de Hartog (no longer in print but available through our supplier of second-hand books)
• A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters – Julian Barnes
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon

“Geillustreerde Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis. voor jong en oud Nederland. door P. Louwerse. Versierd met Honderd Vijfen Vijftig Platen door Johan Braakensiek en anderen. Derde geheel bijgewerkte druk, Amsterdam, 1905.

Note the weird, old-fashioned spelling: this surely is a book that cannot be found om GoodReads! My mum (born 1945) was given it by het uncle when she was a child and felt slightly miffed to receive such an old, boring book. I discovered it in my parents’ bookcase when I could not even read yet and was utterly fascinated by the look of it, the pictures, the world full of stories and weird happenings, all apparently once reality, that it seemed to hint at. At the time, I was too young even to understand the concept “vaderlandse geschiedenis” so referred to it as “Vader Hans Geschiedde”, which I took to mean something along the lines of: Father Hans Did This. My dad’s first name is Hans and as a Daddy’s girl, it seemed completely credible to me that my that he had been present at, and instrumental in, all the feats this book hinted at …Vader Hans Geschiedde sparked off a lifelong love of history and history books. In the end I was presented with is as a graduation gift and I cherish it still. Besides my two cats (surely too inane to save themselves) it’s the only thing I would save in a house fire.”