Be Specific About Out Of Books A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
| Title | : | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian |
| Author | : | Marina Lewycka |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 326 pages |
| Published | : | August 28th 2006 by Penguin Books (first published March 31st 2005) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Contemporary. Humor. Cultural. Ukraine |
Marina Lewycka
Paperback | Pages: 326 pages Rating: 3.4 | 26134 Users | 2632 Reviews
Description During Books A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was bestselling author Marina Lewycka's bestselling debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide. Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father's new, gold-digging girlfriend. Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside. Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . . .
Present Books Toward A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
| Original Title: | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian |
| ISBN: | 0141020520 (ISBN13: 9780141020525) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Nikolai Mayevskyj, Vera, Mike, Nadezhda, Valentina |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2005), Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2005), Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction (2005), Saga Award (2005) |
Rating Out Of Books A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Ratings: 3.4 From 26134 Users | 2632 ReviewsCritique Out Of Books A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Thought this was a great book (despite myself). Easy to read, engaging, likeable characters and well written. The story deals with Nadia, Vera and their wayward Papa (author of the eponymous tractor book) as he deals with the death of their mother and then decides to accquire a young wife from the Ukraine. The arrival of the pneumatically breasted Valentina (part Valkyrie part 60's sex siren) throws the family into chaos and brings to light a lot of forgotten family history. Not laugh out loud[3.5] Like a lot of the popular fiction I've read in the last couple of years, not as enjoyable as expected, yet still did a more than adequate job of being distracting and more or less effortless. Whilst the last c.30% at least has episodes of silly farce, a lot of what went before didn't seem a likely winner of the verbosely-named Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, nor something to be festooned in quotes including "extremely funny" and "hilarious". If it weren't that many of
Thought this was a great book (despite myself). Easy to read, engaging, likeable characters and well written. The story deals with Nadia, Vera and their wayward Papa (author of the eponymous tractor book) as he deals with the death of their mother and then decides to accquire a young wife from the Ukraine. The arrival of the pneumatically breasted Valentina (part Valkyrie part 60's sex siren) throws the family into chaos and brings to light a lot of forgotten family history. Not laugh out loud
Adult sisters warring over parent(s), money, step mother etc. The extracts about the history of tractors are a gimmick that ought to have more relevance to justify its inclusion; the characters and plot are unoriginal and superficial and the attempts at humour feel lame. I can't figure out the target audience, how was it shortlisted for the Orange prize (just a pun on Ukraine's Orange Revolution?) or selected as Radio 4s Book at Bedtime? An adult plot, but written with limited vocab (except for
A librarian co-worker recommended this book to me, describing it as funny and quirky. She knows I come from a Polish family and frequently recommends Russian, Polish, and other Eastern European literature. I find it interesting to read as I was not brought up with any sense of E. European culture, and this book made me wonder what I would be like if I had experienced more Polish-ness. The story revolves around two sisters in their fifties who must sit back while their recently-widowed father
This reads like the author has earnestly followed some kind of How To Write a Comic Novel course.1 - write about what you know. Check! She's British Ukrainian and this is all about British Ukrainian stuff.2 - Decide on a strong central narrator and give them a winning personality. Check! Boy oh boy does our first person narrator want you to like her. When I was reading this today and the doorbell rang I thought that was her come round with some freshly baked pampushky. As the story rolls along
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