Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

De antiquair by Julian Sanchez

  • Started on: 2011-08-18
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: *—-
  • Genre(s): Historical Adventure

This is one of the few books I tried to read but couldn’t finish. I am usually pretty forgiving. Bad writing, far fetched stories, story lines that are forgotten… but this book, it was all too much. For some things, I don’t know if it was the fault of the writer, Julián Sánchez, or the translators (Even the title is a bad translation, it should have been De Antiquaar).
The story (as far as I read/skimmed it) is about an dealer of old, valuable books in Barcelona, who buys a whole collection of works from an old Spanish family. One of the works is a sort of diary from a builder on the Barcelona Cathedral, and it contains some strange allusions to a hidden object, that has something to do with the Jewish community in Barcelona. However, the dealer is murdered, and now his adoptive son is trying to solve the mystery.
It all sounds alright, in a Da Vinci Code ripoff way. But the writing just wasn’t for me. Long, long descriptions of the characters, things that happened in the past but have nothing (yet, I assume) to do with the story. Very long sentences that I just couldn’t follow, and many red herrings in the beginning of the story. One out of five stars, and no finish.

  • Started on: 2011-08-18
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: *—-
  • Genre(s): Historical Adventure

This is one of the few books I tried to read but couldn’t finish. I am usually pretty forgiving. Bad writing, far fetched stories, story lines that are forgotten… but this book, it was all too much. For some things, I don’t know if it was the fault of the writer, Julián Sánchez, or the translators (Even the title is a bad translation, it should have been De Antiquaar).
The story (as far as I read/skimmed it) is about an dealer of old, valuable books in Barcelona, who buys a whole collection of works from an old Spanish family. One of the works is a sort of diary from a builder on the Barcelona Cathedral, and it contains some strange allusions to a hidden object, that has something to do with the Jewish community in Barcelona. However, the dealer is murdered, and now his adoptive son is trying to solve the mystery.
It all sounds alright, in a Da Vinci Code ripoff way. But the writing just wasn’t for me. Long, long descriptions of the characters, things that happened in the past but have nothing (yet, I assume) to do with the story. Very long sentences that I just couldn’t follow, and many red herrings in the beginning of the story. One out of five stars, and no finish.