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 goede man Jezus en de schurk Christus by Philip Pullman (CBE, FRSL)

  • Started on: 2011-04-28
  • Finished on: 2011-04-30
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

This is one of the works in the Canongate Myths series, where famous writers like Margaret Atwood, Ali Smith and now Philip Pullman retell famous myths in their own style. This is the story of Jesus, but not like we know it. In this book, Jesus has a twin, Christ. This separates the spiritualism of Jesus and the creation of an organized religion to last eons.
It was a nice retelling, keeping Pullman’s dislike for the church in the back of my mind. I found the title a bit confusing, at the end I was thinking, was Christ such a scoundrel in this story? And who is the stranger? In the end, you can believe about Jesus what you want, but the message about the church is clear. I do believe it is better when you know the New Testament, because you can more clearly see what Pullman did. Because of the subject matter, which left little to the imagination of the writer (he took the main line from the gospels) it was ok. Three out of five stars.

  • Started on: 2011-04-28
  • Finished on: 2011-04-30
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

This is one of the works in the Canongate Myths series, where famous writers like Margaret Atwood, Ali Smith and now Philip Pullman retell famous myths in their own style. This is the story of Jesus, but not like we know it. In this book, Jesus has a twin, Christ. This separates the spiritualism of Jesus and the creation of an organized religion to last eons.
It was a nice retelling, keeping Pullman’s dislike for the church in the back of my mind. I found the title a bit confusing, at the end I was thinking, was Christ such a scoundrel in this story? And who is the stranger? In the end, you can believe about Jesus what you want, but the message about the church is clear. I do believe it is better when you know the New Testament, because you can more clearly see what Pullman did. Because of the subject matter, which left little to the imagination of the writer (he took the main line from the gospels) it was ok. Three out of five stars.