(Groningen, 1981) studied History at the University of Utrecht. In 2007 he started working for the VPRO, first for Geert Mak's TV-documentary 'In Europa', after that for radio talkshow on culture De Avonden. Westerveen made a few radio documentaries and a radio play. In 2012 he worked on his first interview marathon on Radio 1.

(Argentina, 1948) is a writer of non-fiction, a journalist and a bibliophile. He obtained international renown with Diary of a Reader, A History of Reading and The Library at Night. Manguel spent his early childhood in Tel Aviv where his father was ambassador. He spoke German and English there and only learnt Spanish on his return to Argentina at the age of seven. Nine years later the blind writer Jorge Luis Borges asked him to read for him and so he developed his great love for literature. Meanwhile he has collected over 30,000 books. Right before the Dirty War he left for Europe where he started a major oeuvre on world literature. He exchanged Europe for Canada and in 2000 together with his books moved to Poitou-Charentes in France. He won numerous prizes for his work, the prestigious French Prix Médicis, among others. www.alberto.manguel.com

(Hoorn, 1968) is a journalist who started his career at local radio station Amsterdam FM; after that he became editor of De Digitale Stad, hosted AT5's newshow and talkshows. Then he returned to making radio: first at BNR Nieuwsradio and afterwards at VPRO's programme De Avonden which he presented every Monday and Friday. Since 2015 Van Kan is radio news show host at national public broadcaster NOS; he also can be heard as voice over during TV news shows. Spring 2016, he hosted literary TV programme Boeken. Next to this, Van Kan is active as editor of literary magazines. Until 2007 he was part of the editorial board of De Tweede Ronde. Afterwards he moved to literary magazine Tirade. Together with Wim Brands he is co-editor of Nederland. Een objectief zelfportret in 51 voorwerpen (The Netherlands. An objective autoportrait in 51 objects), a collection of texts about typically Dutch objects by the same number of writers.