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The Book Thief |
Average User Rating: 90% (184 Reviews) | |
| 5 / 5 | Just read it!!!
A. Hope "bookcrossing ali" (Birmingham, England) - 22 February 2008 I am not sure how to describe this book - without either giving too much away - or making it sound depressing and grisely which it is not at all. Suffice to say this is a novel narrated by death. It is the story of a young girl living in Nazi Germany, who goes to live with a foster family,and learns to read, and falls in love with: books, her new Papa, a boy called Rudy, and a Jew hiding in a basement. It is also a story of WW2 - from a persepective we don't often see - ordinaary Germans - some of whom were members of "The Party." Death takes the reader by the hand, and leads us through the lives and deaths of people in Liesel's world, he kind of "gives the game away" a few times - and yet that never spoils it - it prepares the reader for what's ahead. This is an astonishing book - the writing is great - an unusual style - but one that fits perfectly somehow with the voice of Death - and that of the unforgettable Liesel. ... Read Full Review » |
| 4 / 5 | A deeply unsettling but truly moving novel
kimbofo (London, UK) - 27 January 2008 The Book Thief is one of those children's books that has crossed over into the adult market and become subject to incredible word-of-mouth marketing. To be honest, I let it languish on my nightstand for 12 months, because I wasn't sure it would live up to the hype. I've read my fair share of books about the Holocaust and wasn't sure this one would tell me anything I didn't already know. But the author, Markus Zusak, has created a wholly original story. First, the narrator is death, who talks in a kind of roundabout language, part all-knowing, part creepy, part loving. And second, the main character is an ordinary German girl growing up in Nazi Germany who must confront many personal difficulties and traumas during the course of the Second World War. This is not so much a book about the extermination of the Jewish race under Nazi occupation, but the ways in which many Germans went about their ordinary lives at the time and the extraordinary lengths some of them went to save their Jewish friends. The story begins with Liesel Meminger, a traumatised nine-year-old girl. It's 1939 and she has just witnessed the death and burial of her younger brother enroute to her new foster family in a town called Molching. During the burial Liesel picks up an object she finds in the snow -- The Gravediggers Handbook -- which sets up a lifelong love of books, even if she has to beg, borrow or steal them. Her foster father, the kindly accordion-playing Hans Hubermann, teaches her how to read, and together the two of them pass many hours pouring over the pages of the gravedigger's instruction manual. Later, when the family takes in a Jewish man, Max Vanderburg, and hides him away in their basement, Leisel shares her love of words with him, too. Desperate for new reading material, Liesel -- with the help of her blonde-headed friend Rudy -- rescues a book from a Nazi book-burning pile. Later she is introduced to an amazing private library, owned by the mayor's wife, which allows her to momentarily escape the dismal poverty of her ordinary day-to-day life. But when the Nazis discover her foster father handing out bread to a march-through of Jews on their way to Dachau, their lives suddenly take on a more sinister, darker twist -- which no amount of book thievery can alleviate. When the Allied bombs begin to fall on their street, things get even worse and death begins to close in on Liesel, her family and friends... The Book Thief is, without a doubt, an incredibly memorable story. The narrative voice is unique, and the style, which double-backs on itself and occasionally jumps backwards and forwards in time, is interesting if somewhat confusing at times (Would kids get this? I kept asking myself). Initially the staccato rhythm of Death's voice jarred, but I soon learnt to appreciate its whimsical charm. However, I enjoyed the story much more when Death kept his mouth shut and simply let Liesel get on with things. The characters are great, too. Liesel starts off as a rather weak-willed creature, too terrified to even step out of the car when she first arrives at her foster family's home, but over the course of the war she turns into a feisty, courageous tom-boy, who isn't scared of tackling anyone who bullies her. And her best friend Rudy, who has an obsession with Olympic athlete Jesse James, is a suitable, dare I say lovable, ally. I was not as convinced about the foster parents who seemed a little stereotyped -- the kindly, loving father; the foul-mouthed, bullish mother -- but I can understand that younger readers would enjoy the "good cop, bad cop" personalities. The Book Thief is a deeply unsettling story and a truly moving one. I teared up over so many scenes that I couldn't bare to list them here for fear of running out of room! The ending is of the typical grab-your-tissues-and-sob-your-eyes-out ilk. But in reading this very long book -- perhaps a fraction too long, in my opinion (it meanders a lot in the middle) -- I never once thought I was being emotionally manipulated. Zusak does a nice line in letting actions speak louder than words, so that the reader gets to join the dots rather than have every little thing spelt out for them. I like this approach, if only because he treats the children to which this book is aimed with intelligence rather than patronising or speaking down to them. A delightfully human book, haunting, wise and joyous by turn. I don't know why I waited so long to read it. ... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | Touching story of World War II
Jaybird (London, UK) - 3 January 2008 The Book Thief is the story of a ten year old orphan girl in Germany in World War II. It is narrated by Death, who adds a wider historical perspective to the particular story of this little girl's coming of age. If this device is a conceit, it works pretty well. After a while, Death is just another character or narrator, with an adult, dry sense of (black) humour. In many ways the use of Death as a narrator reminded my of The Lovely Bones. Readers who enjoyed that book will welcome this one. Marcus Zuzak handles his themes of loss and love deftly, and the story is made more interesting because it is the story of decent, unpolitical German people, who sometimes do wrong and sometimes do right; a book of moral contingencies then. The writing is fluid, charming and genuinely touching. This book is highly recommneded.... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | Brilliant
kehs (Hertfordshire, England) - 8 April 2008 A young girl, Liesel, steals books from a gravedigger at the burial of her younger brother, from Nazi book burnings and from the mayor's library. She lives with a foster family and her father slowly teaches her to read these books. Later, her family hide a Jew to keep him safe. The story is narrated by Death, who I came to respect and admire for his sense of compassion. This book tells of the nasty turns that life can take and how our lives can alter in the blink of an eye, and is about life, love and the power of words. It's the most eloquently written, emotional, yet uplifting story I have read in a long, long while and my ramblings really cannot do justice to the brilliance of this superlative tale ... Read Full Review » |
| 2 / 5 | daylight robbery
William Rycroft "justwilliamsluck.blogspot.com" (London, UK) - 12 May 2008 This novel seems to have been designed to sell well. Central character who is a child; check. Storyline with books having prominence; check. The Holocaust; check. Something quirky (this book is narrated by Death); check. And kerrching! Let the money flow in. I know this is very cynical and more importantly you could design a book with all these elements and it still be a load of rubbish if you can't write well, but these are the reasons I hadn't even thought of picking this book up. But then it was put into my hand. So I read it. It's long. Almost 600 pages. Admittedly it's not really as long as that sounds as there are a few pictures and the typography means that hardly any pages are simple blocks of text. This is mainly because Death frequently interrupts his narrative with 'quirky' observations or headings telling us what is going to happen next or what's really going on in a character's head. A few times this is entertaining but after a while it begins to grate and after a few hundred pages it's just irritating. It's a really lazy way of putting the story across, for much of the book it felt like I was reading a book for children (In some countries it has been marketed as just that); having everything explained is supposed to come across as illustrative of the omnipotence of Death I guess but it felt a little patronising to be honest. Here for example is how Death sums up his work during the battle of Stalingrad ferrying between the Germans and Russians collecting the souls of 'disassembled men': 'It was no ski trip, I can tell you.' To be greeted by a line like this after persisting for 500 pages made me want to throw the book at the wall. It's not funny, it's not clever, and no one is the slightest bit amused. Death could have provided an amazing insight into humanity (or the lack of it given the wartime setting) but instead delivers adolescent bon mots to show how tiresome it is being him. Tiresome indeed. At one point we are even treated to dictionary quotations to explain the meaning of emblematic words. It's a shame because there are moments were Zusak writes incredibly well. The plot revolves around Liesel, a young girl fostered by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, and the relationships she makes with them, a Jew named Max (whom they hide in their cellar) and her best friend Rudy. Haunted by the death of her younger brother on the train ride to the Hubermanns Liesel is comforted each night by Hans who reads her the book she stole at her brothers burial, the first of many which will give her the eponymous title. When they finally finish The Gravedigger's Handbook early one morning, 'It was one of those moments of perfect tiredness, of having conquered not only the work at hand, but the night who had blocked the way.' A feeling familiar to anyone who loves reading and has been compelled to continue into the night. Her relationship with Max is well written and there is great economy to the way Zusak describes the practicalities of harbouring a Jew in Germany at this time. 'Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it 24 hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew.' Death is quite up front about the toll he will exact during the course of this story but there's plenty of misdirection along the way. The book is overwritten, not nearly as clever as it thinks it is and provides little original insight into the plight of German citizens during the war. Near the end we read quotes from the book Liesel herself writes, a tantalising glimpse of what this novel could have been without Death as our guide. Let me offer him a dictionary definition of my own: Disappoint, verb - to fail to meet the expectation or hope of, frustrate. Irmgard Keun's Child Of All Nations, written before the outbreak of war, provides a far more insightful, entertaining and succint version of events.... Read Full Review » |
Publisher
Black Swan
Publication Date
1 January 2008
Format
Paperback (560 pages)
ISBN
9780552773898
Price Range
£3.86 - £3.86
List Price
£7.99
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