Ramon van Dam
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Ramon van Dam
@ramonvandam.bsky.social
9 followers 8 following 73 posts
🍻 Beer brewer
🎬 Movie lover
📙 Book reader
🚶 Hiker
🤓 IT nerd
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Book review: The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6) - Dan Brown

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#bookreview #robertlangdon #secretofsecrets
Ramon van Dam's review of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon, #6)
3/5: Entertaining, but also quite frustrating at times. We all know the formula: Dan Brown researches a topic and a location and sends Robert Langdon on a quest from puzzle to puzzle to hunt down som...
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November 15, 2025 at 8:27 AM
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Book review: Maskerade (Discworld #18) - Terry Pratchett

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#bookreview #discworld
Ramon van Dam's review of Maskerade (Discworld, #18; Witches, #5)
4/5: Once again it took me a bit to get into the story, but once the witches reached the opera and all the shenanigans ensued I really dug it. The many references to this subculture were lovely, as al...
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October 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
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Book review: Meer Sprookjes Van de Efteling - Ad Grooten & Martijn van der Linden

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#bookreview #efteling
Ramon van Dam's review of Meer Sprookjes Van de Efteling
4/5: Another great collection of Efteling fairy tales. Although this one doesn't have illustrations by the great Anton Pieck, they still look lovely and have their own style that fits the overall look...
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October 27, 2025 at 12:55 PM
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Book review: Jij hebt Stijl! 10 jaar pionieren in de bierwereld - Anneke Geraads-Broeren

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#bookreview
Ramon van Dam's review of Jij hebt Stijl! 10 jaar pionieren in de bierwereld
4/5: What a nice, little read about a Dutch brewery that has chosen to stop their activities at the end of this year. I've read quite some books about breweries and most of them are very similar, but ...
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October 17, 2025 at 7:58 PM
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Book review: Biertypenboek - Derek Walsh (Dutch)

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#bookreview #homebrew
Ramon van Dam's review of Biertypenboek
4/5: A complete rehaul of the current list of beer styles, from a Dutch perspective. This impressive work not only contains descriptions of dozens of styles, but for each one the author has included o...
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October 13, 2025 at 1:18 PM
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Book review: The Impossible Fortune (The Thursday Murder Club #5) - Richard Osman

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#bookreview #thursdaymurderclub
Ramon van Dam's review of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club, #5)
4/5: Another lovely adventure by our favorite murder-solving old-timers. To start with some small criticism: it didn't grab me immediately this time around, to be honest. It took me until about the h...
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October 9, 2025 at 8:26 AM
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Book review: Microbrewed Adventures: A Lupulin Filled Journey to the Heart and Flavor of the World's Great Craft Beers - Charlie Papazian

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#bookreview
Ramon van Dam's review of Microbrewed Adventures
2/5: I've really enjoyed Charlie's other books on homebrewing, but unfortunately this one was a bit of a slug to read. It's mostly a list of his beer related travels and they have quite some overlap. ...
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September 29, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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Book review: The Secret History - Donna Tartt

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#bookreview #thesecrethistory #donnatartt
Ramon van Dam's review of The Secret History
5/5: When I read Donna Tartt's debut novel as a teenager it immediately struck me and stayed with me, so I decided to get a copy as a gift to my wife over a decade later in our twenties and read it ag...
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September 9, 2025 at 8:16 AM
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Book review: The New IPA: Scientific Guide to Hop Aroma and Flavor - Scott Janish

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#bookreview #homebrew #homebrewing #ipa
Ramon van Dam's review of The New IPA
4/5: A great collection of tips, tricks and summaries of research papers for brewers that want to improve their IPAs, especially the New England IPA sub style. There are so many contradicting advices...
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August 23, 2025 at 8:18 AM
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Book review: En ze leven nog lang en gelukkig: sprookjes van de Efteling - Ad Grooten & Gerrie van Dongen

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#bookreview #efteling
Ramon van Dam's review of En ze leven nog lang en gelukkig
4/5: Another nice collection of fairy tales related to the Dutch Efteling theme park, with the same pros and cons as the "Sprookjesboek van De Efteling" book. My biggest gripe is that there's a huge o...
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August 20, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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Book review: Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden - Lieke Marsman (Dutch)

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#bookreview #bookstodon
Ramon van Dam's review of Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden
3/5: This very personal book by Lieke Marsman started out very intriguing for me, but unfortunately she started to lose me bit by bit the further it got along. She manages to convey her own journey wi...
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August 14, 2025 at 1:07 PM
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Book review: Sprookjesboek van De Efteling - Gerrie van Dongen, Ad Grooten & Anton Pieck

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#bookreview #efteling #antonpieck
Ramon van Dam's review of Sprookjesboek van De Efteling
4/5: A nice collection of famous and less well-known fairy tales, which can all be found in or have some relationship with the Dutch theme park Efteling. Most of them are accompanied by the amazing il...
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August 11, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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Book review: A System for Writing - Bob Doto

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#bookreview #zettelkasten
Ramon van Dam's review of A System for Writing
3/5: If you are interested in the zettelkasten method, I'd recommend Sönke Ahrens' "How To Take Smart Notes" over this. This one feels too much like a bunch of blog posts stitched together, and it's a...
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August 7, 2025 at 8:25 AM
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Book review: Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

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#bookreview #brandonsanderson #cosmere #tressoftheemeraldsea
Ramon van Dam's review of Tress of the Emerald Sea
4/5: The first of Sanderson's secret novels, fittingly described by him as a grown-up fairy tale. Set in the world of the Cosmere it's a standalone story, but as always there is some connective tissue...
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July 31, 2025 at 1:07 PM
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Book review: The Brewmaster's Bible: Gold Standard for Home Brewers - Stephen Snyder

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#bookreview #homebrew #homebrewing
Ramon van Dam's review of The Brewmaster's Bible
3/5: This book is mostly a large collection of recipes, but to be honest, I didn't find them very engaging. There's a lot of repetition. For example, do we really need seven dubbel recipes and eight f...
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July 23, 2025 at 8:17 AM
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Book review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne & John Tiffany

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#bookreview #harrypotter
Ramon van Dam's review of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter, #8)
3/5: This new episode in the magical world of Harry Potter feels very familiar, but the story is not up to par nor very original. The idea to revisit scenes from the main saga makes sense for the stag...
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July 16, 2025 at 8:49 AM
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Book review: The Naked Brewer: Fearless Homebrewing Tips, Tricks & Rule-breaking Recipes - Christina Perozzi & Hallie Beaune

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#bookreview #homebrew #homebrewing
Ramon van Dam's review of The Naked Brewer
3/5: This book is primarily a collection of a couple dozen homebrew recipes, with little else to offer. Given the title, I expected more in the way of tips, techniques, or brewing insights, but the br...
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July 10, 2025 at 8:01 AM
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Book review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter #7) - J.K. Rowling

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#bookreview
Ramon van Dam's review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
4/5: A solid ending to the series that does have some serious flaws. Overall, I like how many arcs are wrapped up, except for a big thing near the end that almost feels like a deus ex machina. Still q...
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July 7, 2025 at 2:23 PM
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Book review: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think - Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund

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#bookreview #factfulness
Ramon van Dam's review of Factfulness
5/5: Reading this has been an amazing experience, truly eye-opening. I can honestly say that this is one of the few books that has single-handedly managed to change my worldview significantly. Roslin...
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July 2, 2025 at 8:06 AM
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Book review: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World - Michael Pollan

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#bookreview #botany #evolution
Ramon van Dam's review of The Botany of Desire
4/5: A very interesting and enlightening read. I love diving into works that cover evolution, but have also mostly neglected the field of botany. Michael Pollan shows why it's a fascinating part of na...
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June 17, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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Book review: Artemis - Andy Weir

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#bookreview
Ramon van Dam's review of Artemis
3/5: A fast-paced sci-fi caper with Weir's signature realism, though it stumbles a bit at the finish line. Artemis delivers a gripping science fiction adventure grounded in Andy Weir's trademark atte...
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June 12, 2025 at 1:59 PM
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Book review: The Compleat Meadmaker - Ken Schramm

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#bookreview #mead
Ramon van Dam's review of The Compleat Meadmaker
4/5: A solid, comprehensive and very clear introduction to making mead. It could do with an update since there have been quite some developments in the decades since it was first published, but it's s...
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May 31, 2025 at 7:19 PM
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Book review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter #6) - J.K. Rowling

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#bookreview #harrypotter
Ramon van Dam's review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
4/5: One of the most gripping entries in the series, with several dramatic moments, great sub plots - I've always loved the part in the cave - and good character development. I do remember that the id...
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May 26, 2025 at 6:44 PM
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Book review: The Movie Doctors - Simon Mayo & Mark Kermode

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#bookreview #wittertainment
Ramon van Dam's review of The Movie Doctors
4/5: Take my review with a grain of salt: I've been listening to the podcast of the good doctors in its various incarnations for two decades and can hardly be called objective. Those of you who are al...
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May 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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Book review: Interesting Times (Discworld #17) - Terry Pratchett

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#bookreview #discworld
Ramon van Dam's review of Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5)
3/5: Somehow I always have more trouble getting into the Rincewind-focused Discworld novels, not sure why. This one has an interesting narrative and some nice humor, but I wasn't really invested in bo...
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May 11, 2025 at 10:23 AM