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.

Een korte geschiedenis van de tractor in de Oekraïne by Marina Lewycka

  • Started on: 2011-04-23
  • Finished on: 2011-04-24
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): General Fiction

This book centers around an old man from the Ukraine who lives in England, whose wife has died. He finds love (he thinks) with a very young woman from the Ukraine who is very obviously using him to get to stay in England. His two daughters, who have been fighting all their life, try to do the best they can to save their father from the terrible situation he has put himself in. While this story is told, we also get to read chapters from the book the man is writing about the history of the tractor in the Ukraine, and about the family, how they have come to live in England and why the two sisters are so at odds with each other.
This book is marketed (at least the Dutch version is) as being quite funny. I didn’t quite agree, I found the story mostly pretty tragic. Don’t get me wrong, it was a pretty nice read, but I struggled to find anything funny about it. Strangely (to me) most reviewers on LibraryThing found it very funny too. I guess the type of humor has to appeal to you.

  • Started on: 2011-04-23
  • Finished on: 2011-04-24
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): General Fiction

This book centers around an old man from the Ukraine who lives in England, whose wife has died. He finds love (he thinks) with a very young woman from the Ukraine who is very obviously using him to get to stay in England. His two daughters, who have been fighting all their life, try to do the best they can to save their father from the terrible situation he has put himself in. While this story is told, we also get to read chapters from the book the man is writing about the history of the tractor in the Ukraine, and about the family, how they have come to live in England and why the two sisters are so at odds with each other.
This book is marketed (at least the Dutch version is) as being quite funny. I didn’t quite agree, I found the story mostly pretty tragic. Don’t get me wrong, it was a pretty nice read, but I struggled to find anything funny about it. Strangely (to me) most reviewers on LibraryThing found it very funny too. I guess the type of humor has to appeal to you.