The Reading of Life
What do you do when your doctor passes sentence of death? Live out the cliché of finally doing what you’ve always longed for: travelling somewhere exotic, opening that precious bottle of wine? Or - what if, like Pieter Steinz, you’re already doing what you love? In his case, it was reading books, and writing about what he read. So what then? You carry on. Steinz could do no other. So came into being the series of columns about Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Motor Neurone Disease, MND), that he called his ‘lifeline to the outside world.’ Steinz wrote on his experiences as a patient and his feelings in the face of death, referring to books - both new ones and old familiar ones - as they resonated.
Pieter Steinz challenges Montaigne for the crown. He tells it straight, without frills, yet cheerfully and without false sentimentality – quite an achievement in this emoting age – he builds bridges between his disease and the books that he re-read.
De Volkskrant
Personal, sharp, breathtaking, in every sense of the word.
NRC Handelsblad
