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.

Parrot en Olivier in Amerika by Peter Carey

  • Started on: 2011-07-04
  • Finished on: 2011-07-06
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Historical Fiction

This Booker prize nominated book is about the France nobleman Olivier, who is caught up in the various revolutions going on in France in the early nineteenth century, and the man Parrot, a servant and artist from England who has had his own strange life. Together they travel to America. The book describes their early lives, one as a noble in a sort of exile from the revolution in Paris, the other a boy from the moors in England, caught up in the war between France and England. They meet when Olivier is sent to America to investigate their prison system, and Parrot is sent with him as a servant.
The book covers (without flashbacks) a relatively short period of time in which both Olivier and Parrot have to change a lot. Olivier has to realize that nobility is losing its automatic power, and Parrot has to determine what he wants in life, and do everything to reach that goal. I loved the writing, the switches from Olivier to Parrot and back. Both characters have something exasperating about them, but are also pretty likable. A very nice tale.

  • Started on: 2011-07-04
  • Finished on: 2011-07-06
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Historical Fiction

This Booker prize nominated book is about the France nobleman Olivier, who is caught up in the various revolutions going on in France in the early nineteenth century, and the man Parrot, a servant and artist from England who has had his own strange life. Together they travel to America. The book describes their early lives, one as a noble in a sort of exile from the revolution in Paris, the other a boy from the moors in England, caught up in the war between France and England. They meet when Olivier is sent to America to investigate their prison system, and Parrot is sent with him as a servant.
The book covers (without flashbacks) a relatively short period of time in which both Olivier and Parrot have to change a lot. Olivier has to realize that nobility is losing its automatic power, and Parrot has to determine what he wants in life, and do everything to reach that goal. I loved the writing, the switches from Olivier to Parrot and back. Both characters have something exasperating about them, but are also pretty likable. A very nice tale.