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Book Week

The Netherlands

General

The Book Week is an annual event, since 1932, for the promotion of Dutch books. It's organised by 'Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek' (CPNB, Collective Propaganda for the Dutch Book).

Dutch booksellers give their customers the book week gift for free during the Book Week when they buy Dutch books for a minimum amount of money. This minimum amount had increased through the years.

from to minimum amount
2002 2003 € 11.11
2004 2009 € 11.50
2010 2019 € 12.50
2020   € 15.00

Since 2008 the book week gift is also given to new members of (some) public libraries.

Public transport

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) are the main sponsor of CPNB since 2001.

One of the promotianal activities, between 2002 and 2019, was one day of free travel in the NS trains (within the Netherlands) during the Book Week ("Boekenweek") for passengers on presentation of the book week gift.

Since 2008 the book week gift was also valid in the trains of Arriva, Veolia, Connexxion and Syntus. Five years later the book week gift became valid in the trains of the (then) new company Breng. However Breng did not run trains on Sundays, the day of free travel. In 2018 Syntus was renamed Keolis.

In 2004 a surplus of two euros had to be paid.

After the cancellations due to the Covid pandemic in 2020 and subsequent years, NS announced in 2023 that the free travel day had been permanently discontinued and that CPNB and NS "were choosing to redefine the partnership."

date number of passengers transport company
17 March 2002 unknown Nederlandse Spoorwegen
15 March 2003 100,000 Nederlandse Spoorwegen
21 March 2004 200,000 Nederlandse Spoorwegen
13 March 2005 100,000 Nederlandse Spoorwegen
19 March 2006 150,000 Nederlandse Spoorwegen
18 March 2007 170,000 Nederlandse Spoorwegen
16 March 2008 200,000 Arriva, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Syntus, Veolia
15 March 2009 180,000 Arriva, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Syntus, Veolia
14 March 2010 210,000 Arriva, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Syntus, Veolia
10 March 2011 200,000 Arriva, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Syntus, Veolia
18 March 2012 200,000 Arriva, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS Hispeed, Syntus, Veolia
24 March 2013 235,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS Hispeed, Syntus, Veolia
16 March 2014 240,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS Hispeed, Syntus, Veolia
15 March 2015 240,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS International, Syntus, Veolia
20 March 2016 250,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS International, Syntus, Veolia
2 April 2017 250,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS International, Syntus
18 March 2018 250,000 Arriva, Breng, Connexxion, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS International, Syntus/Keolis
31 March 2019 unknown Arriva, Blauwnet, Breng, Connexxion, Keolis, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS International and Qbuzz
15 March 2020   due to the Coronavirus outbreak the free travel day was cancelled by Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

Book gift

year author title isbn circulation
2002 Anna Enquist De ijsdragers 90-74336-70-1 747,000
2003 Ronald Giphart Gala 90-74336-82-5 780,000
2004 Thomas Rosenboom Spitzen 90-74336-98-1 756,000
2005 Jan Wolkers Zomerhitte 90-9565-012-3 750,000
2006 Arthur Japin De grote wereld 90-5965-027-1 813,000
2007 Geert Mak De brug 978-90-5965-046-6 890,000
Köprü (Turkish translation) unknown 20,000
2008 Bernlef De pianoman 978-90-956-5062-6 960,000
2009 Tim Krabbé Een tafel vol vlinders 978-90-5965-084-8 968,000
2010 Joost Zwagerman Duel 978-90-5965-104-3 958,000
2011 Kader Abdolah De kraai 978-90-5965-123-4 951,000
2012 Tom Lanoye Heldere hemel 978-90-5965-149-4 833,000
2013 Kees van Kooten De verrekijker 978-90-596-5191-3 750,000
2014 Tommy Wieringa Een mooie jonge vrouw 978-90-5965-234-7 655,000
2015 Dimitri Verhulst De zomer hou je ook niet tegen 978-90-5965-274-3 723,000
2016 Esther Gerritsen Broer 978-90-5965-360-3 655,000
2017 Herman Koch Makkelijk leven 978-90-5965-423-5 657,150
2018 Griet op de Beeck Gezien de feiten 978-90-5965-433-4 686,305
Sa't it lân derhinne leit (Frisian translation) 978-90-5965-453-2  
2019 Jan Siebelink Jas van belofte 978-90-5964-467-9 644,000
Jas fan belofte (Frisian translation) 978-90-5965-489-1  
2020 Annejet van Zijl Leon & Juliette 978-90-5965-513-3 600,000+
Leon & Juliette (Frisian translation)    

Since 2015 the books have a QR code on the rear to open ticket barriers on the stations.