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WRITINGS OR TRANSLATIONS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE:
1. JACK’S LITTLE COW BOOK This itty-bitty booklet is a collaboration with cartoonist-illustrator Laura Lynn Eggleston. Despite its minuscule size, it still merited its own ISBN (978-7772387-9-7). It you’d really like to have a copy, please contact us via the contact rubric at this very same website. This little stocking-stuffer can’t be ordered in the same way as the other books. Coming Soon
2. THE LAMP AND OTHER STORIES, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN 978-1-7772387-7-3 This is the fourth collection of short stories, and it includes other “stuff”, meant to entertain, inform and, yes, even enlighten. And trust us, as far as enlightenment is concerned, we didn’t set the bar all that high, as any limbo dancer can attest. Click here to order.
3. A VOYAGE THROUGH MY PARENTS, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN– 978–1–7772387-4-2 This book details the adventurous life of Josephus Hubertus Frenken (soldier, airline captain, medical doctor, painter and writer) and his wife Catharina Elizabeth Frenken-Pernot, much of it told in their own words and amply illustrated with photos.. Click here to order.
4. MY LUNCHES WITH JACK, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN– 978–0–9693863-3-9 This is a collection of 137 encounters by the author with his friend Jack at the food court of the Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa. Topics of these brief sketches range widely. Winner of the 2020 Nonesuch Prize for Bathroom Literature. A fitting complement to any lavatory. Click here to order.
5. CORVUS and Other Stories, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN– 978–0–9693863-7–7 This second collection of 37 short stories, written in the years 2013 to mid-2020, is now available. A brief dramatic sketch by his son Tycho Midwikis is included at no extra charge. Click here to order.
6. RIMSHOTS AND PARADIDDLES, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN – 978-0-9693863-6-0 A collection of 140 verses of different lengths, written over the period from 1955 to and including 2018, mostly in English, with a handful in Dutch (some translated) and some in what may pass as French. Click here to order. THIS BOOK CAN ALSO BE ORDERED FROM BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD (35 BEECHWOOD AVE, OTTAWA, ON, KIM 1M1, tel:613-742-5030, eM address: staff@booksonbeechwood.ca)
7. PRELUDE, ETUDES AND LAMENTATIONS, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN – 978-0-9693863-5-3 A collection of 180 poems written over the period from 1955 to and including 2017, gathered under four headings: Silent Drums; Of Faith and Doubt; From Tongue to Tongue; and Afterlove. While most of the poems are in English, there are some in Dutch and French, many with translations into English. Click here to order. THIS BOOK CAN ALSO BE ORDERED FROM BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD (35 BEECHWOOD AVE, OTTAWA, ON, KIM 1M1, tel:613-742-5030, eM address: staff@booksonbeechwood.ca)
8. TALES TOLD AND RETOLD, by Sjef Frenken. ISBN 978-0-9693863-4-6 This is a collection of short stories comprising all of Sjef Frenken's output of this genre (up to 2013), except for some narrative lyrics in his songs, and the series of sketches My Lunches with Jack, which appear from time to time on the website www.grubsteet.ca. Some of the stories are fiction; some tell of actual events; some are retellings of well-known folk tales; some are in verse; one is a re-telling in verse form of a story that has already been the subject of various treatments in novella form ("The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter"). Click here to order. THIS BOOK IS ALSO AVAILABLE FROMS BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD (35 BEECHWOOD AVE, OTTAWA, ON, KIM 1M1, tel:613-742-5030, eM address: staff@booksonbeechwood.ca)
9. Images from My Childhood, by Hüb Frenken, translated from the Dutch by Sjef Frenken. ISBN-10-73251-04-4, ISBN-13-978-90-73251-04-5 This mostly biographical book chronicles the earliest fourteen years of Dr J. H. Frenken's life in a small village in Limburg, the southern-most province of The Netherlands, where the author was born in 1907. It includes his memories of the principal movers-and-shakers of the village, the war of '14-'18, the traumatic experience of his First Confession and all it entailed, the break-out of the Spanish Flu, and other defining events in his young life. All told with humour and charm. The author learned to fly in the Dutch Army, was a pilot for KLM and later became a dermatologist. He died in 2001. More information about his life, his paintings and writing (in Dutch), is available on the website www.jhfrenken.nl . If you wish to obtain one or more copies, click here to order. Or you can order it through your friendly neighbourhood book store.
10. Love Was Light – The Collected Poems of Brendan Emmett Foley, Brendan Emmett Foley was born in Montreal in 1937. He was educated at St Willibrord’s primary school, and graduated cum laude with a B.A. and the Governor-General’s medal from Loyola College in Montreal. He continued his studies at the University of Toronto, where he obtained his M.A. in English. Foley taught at Notre Dame University College in Nelson, B.C. and at King Edward College (which later became Langara College) in Vancouver. Brendan Emmett Foley died in 2006 in Vancouver. Foley started writing poetry in his youth, and continued to do so throughout his life. This collection represents his life’s output. If you wish to obtain one or more copies, click here to order. Or you can order it through a book store. [This book is currently sold out. If you’d like to be put on the list for a second edition, whenever that becomes available, Please e-mail us .]  [was sold out, but a limited edition reprint is now available — just a few copies, so hurry to order.] 11. PIET SOER AND OTHERS OF THE OLD EAST-INDIES LINE, J. H. Frenken was a pilot for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in the 1930s and 1940s. His book focusses on Piet Soer, one of KLM's earliest pilots, with whom Frenken, as co-pilot, made a number of flights from Amsterdam to what is now Indonesia. Such a flight could take up to 11 days. The book also touches on most of the other ten of KLM's 34 pilots at the time, who also lost their lives flying for the airline in its early days. Frenken's vivid descriptions highlight the risks as well as adventures of flying in those days. Softcover; 148 pages, with more than 60 photos. More information about his life as a pilot and a medical doctor, his paintings and writings (in Dutch), is available on the website www.jhfrenken.nl .He died in 2001. If you wish to obtain one or more copies, click here to order. Or you can order it through your friendly neighbourhood book store. 
12. Maria Rosario and Other Stories, J. H. Frenken learned to fly in the Dutch Army, was a pilot for KLM in the thirties and forties, and later became a dermatologist. This collection contains stories from his flying days, his times as a prisoner during the Second World War, his days as a doctor in Holland and the West-Indies, and finally his adventures as a tourist in Asia and Latin-America. If you wish to obtain one or more copies, click here to order. Or you can ask your friendly neighbourhood book store to order it for you. 13. “My Lunches with Jack”, a series of brief sketches that may be read on the website grubstreet.ca. New episodes are added from time to time. (While on grubstreet.ca, also check out the articles by humourist David Simmonds.)
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