Perpustakaan - Kamus Unggah-Ungguh Basa Jawa

This is an incredibly valuable resource for students of Javanese. Published in 2001 by Kanisius Publishers, The Javanese Speech Styles Dictionary (a rough translation of the title) provides the student with a fairly good illustration of how speech styles are structured. Individual lexical items are followed by examples of how the word is used in a particular speech style ( or level of speech) such as ngoko, ngoko alus, kromo, kromo alus etc.

Obviously it cannot provide the student with a comprehensive illustration as Javanese speech styles are very much influenced by regional and local speech habits, but it certainly provides a good basis upon which to develop one's understanding of how the various speech styles within Javanese are structured.

Joke

An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a priest, a rabbi and a pastor walk into a bar and and bar tender says, "Is this some sort of joke?"

Perpustakaan - Max Havelaar (Multatuli)

Max Havelaar was written by Edward Douwes Dekker who went under the pseudonym Multatuli. Published in 1860, it brought strong criticism upon the Dutch East Indies and in particular the 'Cultivation System' or 'Culture System' which was in place between 1830 and 1870. The story of Max Havelaar helped sway public opinon in the Netherlands against the policies of the Colonial administration in Java and thus helped to bring an end to the Cultivation System.

This story was made into a film in 1976 as a Dutch-Indonesian collaboration. It's very difficult to get a hold of but I was fortunate to obtain it from a Dutch friend who bought the DVD in the Netherlands.