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Manufacturer: Black Swan Written By: Markus Zusak
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Binding: Paperback EAN: 9780552773898 ISBN: 0552773891 Label: Black Swan Manufacturer: Black Swan Number Of Pages: 560 Publication Date: 2008-01-01 Publisher: Black Swan Studio: Black Swan
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak was the best-selling debut literary novel of the year 2007, selling over 400,000 copies. The author is a prize-winning writer of children's books, and this, his first novel for adults, proved to be a triumphant success. The book is extraordinary on many levels: moving, yet restrained, angry yet balanced -- and written with the kind of elegance found all too rarely in fiction these days. The book's narrator is nothing less than Death itself, regaling us with a remarkable tale of book burnings, treachery and theft. The book never forgets the primary purpose of compelling the reader's attention, yet which nevertheless is able to impart a cogent message about the importance of words, particularly in those societies which regard the word as dangerous (the book is set during the Nazi regime, but this message is all too relevant in many places in the world today).
Nine-year-old Liesel lives with her foster family on Himmel Street during the dark days of the Third Reich. Her Communist parents have been transported to a concentration camp, and during the funeral for her brother, she manages to steal a macabre book: it is, in fact, a gravediggers’ instruction manual. This is the first of many books which will pass through her hands as the carnage of the Second World War begins to hungrily claim lives. Both Liesel and her fellow inhabitants of Himmel Street will find themselves changed by both words on the printed page and the horrendous events happening around them.
Despite its grim narrator, The Book Thief is, in fact, a life-affirming book, celebrating the power of words and their ability to provide sustenance to the soul. Interestingly, the Second World War setting of the novel does not limit its relevance: in the 20th century, totalitarian censorship throughout the world is as keen as ever at suppressing books (notably in countries where the suppression of human beings is also par for the course) and that other assault on words represented by the increasing dumbing-down of Western society as cheap celebrity replaces the appeal of books for many people, ensures that the message of Marcus Zusak’s book could not be more timely. It is, in fact, required reading -- or should be in any civilised country. --Barry Forshaw
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Just Amazing Comment: I will not go into the ins and outs of the plot, many many of the other reviewers here can do that for you. I just had to write what I thought of this, I got this as a Christmas present from my father who couldn't understand why I wanted it... I was a bit unsure myself. Suffice to say I am so glad I got it. I have read many war/holocaust novels that have made me think but this one was/is incredible. I have laughed and sobbed through it. I truly think that everybody should read it. The characters of Liesel, Hans, Rudy Max and all of the others come off the page with such intensity that I could not put it down. It is not a happy story, it is not meant to be - but there is an element of triumph amongst all of the tragedy. The writing is fantastic, I loved the way Zusak put it together, the words and the form are such that you cannot rest but to finish it. I didn't want to finish it in some ways, you are led unremittingly towards the end with very little choice.
I put it back on my shelf when I finished it just now where it will rest momentarily before I pass it on to the next unsuspecting reader I can find. Customer Rating: Summary: Average story but very original format. Comment: While I enjoyed this novel I felt that beyond its unique structure it was not as brilliant as previous reviewers. The narrator is the Grim Reaper(Death) and he tells us who dies and the endings before telling us the details of the story, a quirky aspect I enjoyed. It is very accessible with short snappy chapters, an interesting look at ordinary decent Germans during WW2 and for a book which addresses the holocaust is not overly sentimental like most novels dealing with the issue. I would recommend without question but don't expect to be reading your all time favorite. Customer Rating: Summary: An endearing tale... Comment: The book thief is a beautiful story, you are drawn into little Leisel's life with her Mama and Papa. Her love of books and her new family grows as she does. The narration by death of this girls life is sometimes sad, funny and always touching.
A must read book! Customer Rating: Summary: An utterly amazing book - one of the best Comment: I was a bit sceptical of this book at first and thought of it to be very unsettling but in the end it became my favourite of the many I have read. In some parts I laughed and in others I weeped but it came out tops overall.
The book is narrated by Death who comments a lot in the book and expains in a cold and sometimes warm heart what he is doing and what is happening. Leisel is a young german girl who has had a traumatic life and, after witnessing her own brother's death, is sent to a foster family clutching a book, "The grave digger's manual" she found in the snow in her hand. It starts off with her character being a weak little girl but then shows how the Nazi influenced germany shapes her life and she flourishes into a strong willed young lady with a loving family and friends and a passionate love for books. Her foster family then take on a jew named Max and hide him in the basement. Now all hell breaks loose as her foster father is seen passing bread to the marching jews in the street. As Max is a constant threat and danger to their lives, Liesel loves him as a brother and shares her love for books with him as they go on a terrifing journey through world war 2. The ending resulted in many tears as it has an awful and then happy outcome but that was expected really.
The book opens your eyes to the germans' view points during the war and how most of them strongly dissagread with everything but could not stop it in fear of losing their's, and other's, lives. A heart-breaking yet incredible books that is definately 1st in my Top Ten list.
Highly recommended. Customer Rating: Summary: Disappointing waste of a story Comment: Disappointing; I expected more but, for me, The Book Thief failed to deliver any lasting impact.
The story covers a few formative years in the life of Liesel, a young, orphaned, German girl growing into her early teens through the Second World War in a town near Munich and not far from Dachau. It chronicles a series of incidents that depict growing relationships in extraordinary circumstances, as the war takes its toll on the everyday life of a provincial town and its citizens.
Liesel's scrapes with Rudy, the young schoolboy classmate next door, for example, and her slow-to-emerge love for her working-class foster family and their secret Jewish hideaway show love and true friendship. There are some wonderfully evocative passages, particularly between Liesel and Rudy, that capture the essence of two young children living every dangerous moment together, prepared to fight to defend each other against older bullies and Hitler youth, and walking home together at the end of every day. Liesel is the eponymous thief, fuelling her yearning to read by acquiring a handful of books by various means.
Perhaps life in such circumstances has to be lived on the surface if you want to survive, it is, after all, at those times when deeper emotions are allowed by the characters to take them over that the greatest danger emerges.
This bold book presents its story in brave fashion, with theatrical asides breaking into the staccato chapters to maintain the high tempo. However, this simple series of events through time, narrated by Death as a character with a strangely human presence, fails to make any real point.
Little is made of the opportunity to explore the tensions felt by ordinary folk as anti-Semitism takes hold of a population. Is Liesel's Papa the only person in Germany to have doubts about a policy of such persecution? Or is it only when it is applied to his personal Jew, the one he has accepted responsibility for, that such horrors become too much to bear? And what of using the more susceptible minds against those who might ask awkward questions, employing the younger generation to pressurize and, in extremis, inform upon their parents, an approach repeated in the ghetto where Jew was forced to inform upon Jew. Such events are ignored in favour of a simpler, sentimental tale which lacks any real punch.
It suffers badly as a result, is a hundred and fifty pages too long and, ultimately, boring.
