The Olive Readers

By Christine Aziz

Book Overview

The debut novel from the winner of the Richard & Judy competition to find a bright new author. 'The Olive Readers' is a portrait of a dystopian future and a love story of both courage and redemption.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0330439634
• ISBN13: 9780330439633
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Pan
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.9" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

the olive readers by christine aziz

this book is set in the future and as such is a work of science fiction. It tells the story of Hepzibah and her sister Jephzat who live with their parents in the Olive Country. The world by now has become sectioned off into countries which provide foods and products - corporate countries, all dependent on water to survive. The Olive country is essentially a mediterranean country where the sisters live a charmed life until soldiers from the Water Country arrive and Hepzibah decides to go off with them when they eventually leave. After her parents are sent to another corporate company to help the Federation, as scientists, Jephzat is left alone to fathom the next steps in her life at the mercy of the Federation who govern all the workers lives.It is at this point she is introduced to the secret sect of the Olive Readers who live within a secret section of the old rambling villa she lives in.

George Orwell follow up

George Orwell years later, 28 April 2006 Reviewer: J. Cohen (New York) - See all my reviews THis is literary clairvoyance on a par with Orwell, Huxley, Lessing and Atwood. The author says she began writing this 18 years ago - when a lot of the issues in her book were not hitting the headlines as dramatically and urgently as they are now, such as water, natural disasters, pollution, control of information, loss of civil rights. Who would have thought of America as an 'empire' then, but many of us do now. Not only does her elegant prose tell a fine story of a young woman struggling to come to terms with the information she is receiving from long lost books in a secret library, it is unsettling in its content. It made a refreshing change to read a book in which the romantic interest did not take over the story . It's a real page turner. The author mentions that some of the book had to be written in a very short time due to the constraints of a competition she entered and won. I think this shows in the last part of the book where action moves rather too fast at the expense of detail and expansion of character. But overall, I found The Olive Reader intensely moving. Like 1984 it provides a disturbing reminder of what we stand to lose. Here is a new writer who can think, and write, beyond the confines of the mundane.

This is an amazing book!

The Olive Readers is an extraordinary and original book. It is beautifully written, filled with rich language and evocative metaphors, and at the same time it is an incredible story. It speaks of the future in a way that is both believable and scary, yet covers all the deep human aspects of life and thought. I highly recommend this book.