To celebrate Pride Month we invite queer authors, poets, singers, writers, and community members to take to the stage after store hours in ABC The Hague and share their words. Whether it’s fiction, poetry, memoir, or something in between, if your story reflects queer life, love, struggle, or joy — this evening is for you.
The evening will be for an intimate gathering (we have space for about 30 people, and if it’s sold out some of you may have to stand), and while there will be a stage, there will not be a microphone or a sound system, so please bear that in mind when preparing your piece or songs to share. Also, please try to keep your performance to about 5 minutes/2 songs. If time allows we can do a second round of performances.
We’ll take your name at the door, and the line-up is first come, first served. You are also welcome to attend if you’re not performing!
Tickets are €10 for everyone – and everyone will also get a €10 voucher that can be used on any purchase that evening.
Come to speak. Come to listen. Come to feel seen, heard, and connected.
Bibliotheek Den Haag will introduce a new membership system from January 2027, including a free option for all residents of The Hague. The library says the changes are designed to make it easier for more people to become members and make use of its services across the city.
Under the new structure, residents will be able to choose between three memberships: Gratis (free), Basis (Basic) and Compleet (Complete). The free membership allows users to borrow up to five books per year and includes access to computers and online learning programmes.
For more regular visitors, two paid memberships will also be available. The Basis membership will cost €4 per month and allows members to borrow up to five items at a time, while the Compleet membership at €6 per month increases this to twenty items. Both paid memberships also include access to the digital collection and reservable study and workspaces at the Centrale Bibliotheek.
The changes also replace the current system, which mainly offers a single standard adult membership costing €40 per year. While the new structure introduces a free option for occasional users, regular members may notice that the comparable paid membership becomes slightly more expensive. Membership remains free for children under 18 years old.
Another key change is that overdue fines will officially remain abolished. Bibliotheek Den Haag stopped charging fines in 2023 and says continuing this policy helps reduce barriers and improve accessibility for residents.
Alderman Klaas Verschuure described the library as “a place for everyone”, whether people visit to read, study, meet others, or simply spend time there.
With the Centrale Bibliotheek at Spui and 17 neighbourhood branches across the city, Bibliotheek Den Haag welcomed more than two million visitors in 2025.
Please join us in ABC The Hague for an afternoon with Lisa Rassaei, author of Leading Through the Shadows: Transform Adversity into Strength. Lisa will talk about her book, have a Q&A session, and sign her book as well.
About the book: Burnout and toxic dynamics aren’t random, they follow patterns most leaders don’t see. If you’re feeling drained, frustrated, or stuck at work, you’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. What we often call burnout is not just exhaustion. It’s how people adapt when work environments don’t feel safe. Every team carries invisible dynamics: unspoken fears, past experiences, power imbalances, and survival patterns. Left unaddressed, these shape behavior, drive conflict, and lead to disengagement and burnout. But when leaders learn to recognize and work with them, something shifts, tension turns into trust, and pressure no longer comes at the cost of people. In Leading Through The Shadows, Dr. Lisa Rassaei draws on more than a decade of leadership and coaching experience across corporate and non-profit organizations to reveal what truly drives human behavior and performance at work. Through real-life examples and reflection questions, she offers a clear, step-by-step approach to building psychologically safe environments, strengthening relationships, and creating sustainable performance.
Dr. Lisa Rassaei is the founder of Neuro-Resilience Coaching & Consulting. She helps leaders understand how well-being, resilience, and psychological safety directly impact team performance. With over 20 years of professional experience across both for-profit and non-profit organizations, including more than a decade in leadership roles, Lisa combines deep expertise with nuanced understanding of how trauma, stress, and burnout shape workplace culture. She holds a PhD in science. an MBA, and advanced certifications in neuroscience, trauma, somatic, and systems coaching, enabling her to guide leaders in ways that align human behavior, well-being, and organizational performance. Outside work, Lisa has traveled to more than 60 countries across five continents, exploring cultures and learning from diverse perspectives. These experiences have enriched her approach to leadership and coaching. She is a certified Pantarei Approach practitioner and a certified yoga teacher. She enjoys practicing yin yoga and urban gardening, nurturing people and plants, reflecting her commitment to growth, balance and holistic well-being.
It gives me great pleasure to launch my new book entitled: Geloven is Humor? Fun in Faith. It is written in both Dutch and English and contains 40 funny stories from 40 years of pastoral ministry, of which 28 in The Hague.
…
Fr. Sjaak de Boer has been the Pastor of the International English-speaking Roman Catholic Parish of Our Saviour in the Hague since 1998. Every Sunday about one thousand people from 60 different nationalities gather there from all walks of life. Ambassadors and refugees share the same pews. Ordained as a priest in 1986, he worked as a Mill Hill missionary in Kenya and Brazil, as well as in several other countries.
His PhD at Louvain Catholic University focused on poverty as an avoidable source of suffering. Prayer gains more credibility when we not only ask God for help but also offer to do something about poverty ourselves. Pastoral ministry offers many surprising opportunities for connecting people, both in and outside the church.
In 40 stories, Fr. Sjaak illustrates how, in the most challenging and powerful moments of life, a dose of humour and humility can help keep one’s feet firmly on the ground for 40 years.
A few years after ABC first opened its doors in Amsterdam in 1972, founders Mitch Crossfield and Sam Boltansky decided to expand operations to The Hague. They got their hands on a cheap place to rent in the city center, and in 1976 ABC The Hague opened in the Spuistraat, in a basement below the building that currently houses Burger King. Those first few years in The Hague were totally different from the present-day situation: stock consisted of whatever was sent over from the US, customer orders were not a thing, and everything happened on paper. No computer in sight!
Time passed, progress progressed, and eventually the store moved to its current location: Lange Poten 23. The building used to house a clothing store, which explains the many mirrors still dotted throughout the sales floor. The building is a bit of a time capsule anyway: there’s a mysterious, Mondriaan-esque mosaic on the first floor ceiling that none of us know the origin of, there’s lots of little doors and wall panels dating back to when the building was heated by big gas tanks (not as long ago as you might think!), and there are now-defunct cables and light switches everywhere.
Of course, we have built our own history over the past 50 years as well. Our bookshelves were sourced more or less by chance from a bookstore in the States that was getting rid of them, different iterations of our logo have graced the storefront (the original one, as seen in our cash desk, was hand-designed by ABC founder Mitch!), and the little door next to the Crime Fiction section is now home to our friendly store gnome, who likes to get involved whenever new store displays are made.
We also can’t talk about our store’s origins without talking about Joe. He’d worked for Sam before, setting up bookstores and running them for a few months until they were sold off, so it made sense to send him to the Netherlands to hold down the fort when Mitch had to go back to the States for a few months. Joe was the first official ABC The Hague staff member – the only one, for a while – and in many ways set the tone of our operations over the next five decades.
These days, we have a team of about 15 staff members in The Hague, who also keep our Leidschendam store (which just turned 5!) running. We cleaned up our act quite a bit over the years, going from a place that sells “whatever books we can get our hands on” to a proper bookstore, well-established in The Hague. Well, almost proper. We still do a lot of things differently from most other bookstores, and we doubt that’ll ever change. There’s a reason we like to call ourselves “stubbornly independent!”
Speaking of – for obvious reasons, ABC is a big proponent of brick-and-mortar stores. That’s why we’re participating in the “Week van de Stenen Winkel” on May 4-10. We’d love to invite everyone to visit us; in general, but specifially in that week. The first few customers of the day throughout that week will receive a special little present!
The American Book Center is 50! Join the celebrations.
Saturday, April 11th
ABC Amsterdam, Spui 12 1012XA ABC The Hague, Lange Poten 23 2511CM ABC Leidschendam, Westfield Mall of the Netherlands, Kornoelje 15 2262AX
Join us in celebrating our birthday this year!
🎂 All three stores will have cake to share with you all (as long as supplies last of course).
🎒 We will also be giving away special, limited edition mini Booklover Bags to anyone who buys something in our physical stores on this day.
🪪 Those lovely folks who have a valid ABC Booklover Card get 10% extra discount (so 20% discount in total) in our physical stores on this day.
ABC The Hague will have a few extra things going on, as we are celebrating our 50th birthday there:
🖼️ Come have a look at our ABC museum display, with 50 years of memories. Do you remember our old location? What staff t-shirts have we worn throughout the years?
📚 We’ll also have two trivia quizzes in the afternoon, at 12:00 hrs and at 15:00 hrs. Come test your literary knowledge, and we’ll also sprinkle in some ABC The Hague trivia! Maximum group size for participation is 3 people, it’s first come first serve as far as space goes, and we’ll have some fun goodie bags for the winners! The trivia quizzes will be held upstairs, but please note that unfortunately we do not have an elevator, so the these will not be wheelchair accessible.
