Product Description

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. By her brother's graveside, Liesel Meminger's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is "The Gravedigger's Handbook", left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her foster father, learns to read. Soon, she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down. "The Book Thief" is a story about the power of words and the ability of books to feed the soul. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #497698 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

The Guardian
Unsettling, thought-provoking, life-affirming, triumphant and
tragic, this is a novel of breath-taking scope, masterfully told...A
wonderful page-turner.

Lisa Hilton, Sunday Telegraph
Extraordinary, resonant and relevant, beautiful and angry.

Customer Reviews

A deeply unsettling but truly moving novel
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.

Very good read
A thought provoking read. Very well written, and in an unusual style. Don't be put off by the length of the book or the writing style which takes a bit of getting used to over the first few chapters. Once you get past the first 30 pages you will be wrapped up in the story and be sorry it finished.

A masterpiece of empathy
Sometimes a fictional interpretation of history is exactly what we need in order to be able to come to a real understanding of what it meant to live through historic events, particularly horrific ones. Markus Zusak provides us with a masterful interpretation of the Nazi period of German history from the perspective of ordinary people suffering through it and striving to keep their lives together and their souls alive and kicking within the horrific and ever-tightening boundaries constructed by the Nazi regime. He gives us a gut-wrenchingly palpable empathy for people facing harrowing decisions on a daily basis. His marvelous characters bring to life the dilemmas of those who believe they should help the Jews as well as the equally nightmarish predicament of Jews who through receiving help put others in danger. We see much of this through the perspective of the main character Liesel, who is only a young girl. Her innocence and the gradual realizations she comes to about the events swirling around her in a maelstrom of horror evoke a remarkable empathy in the reader. If you want to understand how the little people cope with such tragic historic events without allowing their souls to be crushed, read this book. Ultimately it is a portrait of the resilience and hope of the human spirit.