Product Description

The story of a young German girl who steals books, of her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany when the bombs begin to fall.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Synopsis
1939 - Nazi Germany - The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. Some important information - this novel is narrated by death. It's a small story, about: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist fighter; and quite a lot of thievery. Another thing you should know - death will visit the book thief three times.

From the Back Cover
`Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times

`Extraordinary, resonant, beautiful and angry'
Sunday Telegraph

HERE IS A SMALL FACT

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION
THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH

It's a small story, about:

a girl

an accordionist

some fanatical Germans

a Jewish fist fighter

and quite a lot of thievery.

ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW
DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES

About the Author
Markus Zusak, a prize-winning author, lives in Sydney with his wife and daughter. The Doubleday hardback of The Book Thief , published at the beginning of January 07, stayed in the top ten of the Sunday Times bestsellers for nine weeks. It was published to critical acclaim in Australia and in America where it reached No. 1 on the The New York Times bestsellers list. Film rights have been optioned by the makers of The Devil Wears Prada.

Customer Reviews

Should I read this book?
You have questions, of course... So, should I read this book, "The Book Thief"? Is it any good? Is it yet another depressing book about Nazis and Jews and the Second World War? What is this all about - Death as the narrator - sounds contrived...

I had seen this book, gracing the shelves in bookshops and, to be honest, was attracted by the cover but not sure that I wanted to read another novel about the horrors of the Holocaust. I went with my first instinct - the cover felt right...

This book is not a harrowing hike through the charnel houses of 1940's Europe. It is a simple tale of the trivia which make up human lives. It is moving and rich and captures the simplicity of childhood, the joy of friendship and the love of family in a way both rewarding and entertaining. War is simply the backdrop, the uncontrollable randomness which changes the course of lives with no regard for our individual hopes and desires, for the balance sheet of rights and wrongs, for the things we have yet to do and the things we have left undone...

If you are going to read this book - and I strongly recommend it - do not allow yourself to be derailed by the first 30 pages or so... The book starts with the usually detached narrator introducing himself as the personification of death. In these first few pages, it seems an artifice. In the final analysis, this device allows the narrator to observe the human condition from without, with a slightly confused, bemused air over the antics of humanity. For much of the story - and it is that, a good story - the narrator simply fades back into the pages and fulfils the conventional role.

It takes a good 30 to 50 pages for the story to begin to engage the reader in the very human and skilfully drawn characters that make up its pages. Liesel is a German girl displaced by the churning social re-engineering delivered by Nazism into the hands of a poor, uncouth, but good-hearted foster family - "salt of the earth", you might say. The story which unfolds sometimes smacks of Richmal Crompton's "Just William", but with a mature poignancy pointing to the inherent threat in the new social order. The author litters his text with anthropomorphism and transferred epithet, but with a skill and passion that makes everything come alive, the walls and fabric of the story breathe with emotion and are responsive to the goings on around them.

In the end, this is a beautiful and well-written tale of the magic that fills ordinary lives to make them extraordinary in a way that only those closest to them may ever see. The greatness of great men lives on but the men themselves are truly lost to us as it is the living of a life that gives it its true resonance: it is the minds and memories and hearts which have shared most intently and touched the lives of those souls now lost to us who can truly know and cherish who the dead once were. This book reminds us of that...

Very hard to read
This book is very hard to read. The writer tried so hard to tell us the story from the point of view of a ghost, and tried very hard to be inventive, as some reviewers said. But it is NOT. In recent years, we have got the American Beauty which is written exactly the same way. This is a bad copy at that.

From the pure literary point of view, this is a bad book, because of these factors: the narrator is too remote, and unbelievable, the story is weak for the readers. It is anything but engaging. There is no urge in me when I turned the pages. If it is not for the fact that I paid for it, I would not go beyond page 50. So it is definitely not a page-turner.

The writer also tried very hard to give the book a mood of depression. But he was not successful at doing that at all. The impression from the story is first and foremost too remote and not engaging for the readers and it is that make the story irrelevant somehow. The book is full of interior monologue, narrative summery, character description that peppered with very little dialogue. There is a character summery almost on every other page in big fat letters which seems to tell people: remember this, you stupid readers! Throughout the book, you can see hundreds if not thousands classic examples that your teacher of literature at school have warned you not to make.

The sad thing is: popular novel is by no means good literature. That is a fact. The reason? Lots of them. At least some of them are: most of the people who read novels are either people who only care to read stories, or people who are easily satisfied by any literary story. And boy, they are patient! A book with such problematic magnitude can receive such tremendous review is beyond my belief. The publisher has not even done any decent work to eliminate the editing failure.

Do publishers really know what they are talking about? I don't think so. Don't forget, When Joanna Rowling (J.K. Rowling)'s agent sent her Harry Potter manuscript to 12 big publishers in 1996, they all rejected. So, who is the judge for a good novel, you people out there who can be so easily satisfied with any kinds of stories. And they needn't be good.

Beatiful book
My mum gave me this book to read, which is usual a bad sign, but I have throughly enjoyed it. Death is the narrator, which should be depressing, but in a weird way it's uplifting.
It's a wonderful story about an horrific time and I'm surprised by how much I loved it!