*The Book Thief
4 journalers for this copy...
I have read one other Zusak book, I Am The Messenger, which was in the library under Young Adult Fiction, but it was pretty sophisticated to be so labelled. This one, which I have not yet read, has not been identified as a young adult book at all, so I am labelling it fiction. Comments after reading!
I can't remember how long it has been since I reached the end of a book with tears in my eyes. Granted, it has been an emotional stressful week, but the power of this book got to me, and I fought the logical development and conclusions! I love the style of Markus Zusak; I have read I Am The Messenger too and remember liking it but not being swept away as I was here. I read a lot of novels set during World War II, so I am partial to that period. But here the power of the telling is wondrous. It is narrated by Death who comes across as quite a sympathetic creature. Liesel the main character you just want to fold into your life and hold on to.... but Rudy captures your caring as well, and dozens of supporting cast. There are plenty of reviews out there, so I don't need to add to those. I pulled this from the middle of my enormous TBR pile in order to send it as a surprise RABCK to a Bookcrossing friend in Canada who did honor me the same way recently, greatly warming my existence. I hope he hasn't read it yet and will enjoy it.... or at least pass it on.
Thank you so much for the totally unexpected RABCK. It was a very welcome surprise waiting for me after I had a long day of overtime at work. I am really looking forward to reading this and am going to pop it to the peak of Mt. TBR. Thanks again :)
I agree wholeheartedly with MmeClinton's assessment of the emotional power of this book. Reading this was emotionally wrenching, and managed to paradoxically leave me both saddened and with renewed faith in humanity at the end. I'm glad that I wasn't reading this in front of my wife, she would have poked fun at my teary-eyedness and I would have had to come up with one of those, "I got dust in my eye", or "My contact lens is bothering me" kind of excuses.
What I enjoyed most about this book was how invested I felt in all of the characters. I absolutely fell in love with Liesel, Papa, Rudy, and Max, and even found myself enjoying the love evident in Rosa Hubermann underneath her rough words.
All in all this was a great read. It was definitely one of the best books I read this year.
What I enjoyed most about this book was how invested I felt in all of the characters. I absolutely fell in love with Liesel, Papa, Rudy, and Max, and even found myself enjoying the love evident in Rosa Hubermann underneath her rough words.
All in all this was a great read. It was definitely one of the best books I read this year.
I will be sending this off to rainbow3 in Scotland very soon.
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
I will be dropping this in the mailbox for rainbow3 this afternoon. However it will be taking a leisurely ride aboard a ship, so I expect it may take a month or two to arrive.
I will be dropping this in the mailbox for rainbow3 this afternoon. However it will be taking a leisurely ride aboard a ship, so I expect it may take a month or two to arrive.
Oops, just realised I had this, so here I am weeks after the event of it’s arrival journaling it! The parcel arrived on the 26th of November, elastic band secured to my sisters Christmas presie, also from Canada. So I figured in haste, I was rushing out as the postie was delivering, that she had sent two parcels and I didn’t check. Till now! I’m packing to be away for Christmas and in fact am leaving tomorrow morning, yes a long break and yes, I’m a last minute lassie, so I wondered which of my presies I could get in my luggage so I had something to open under the tree, and low and behold… a bookcrossing book was discovered!
As fate would have it, just after I had arranged, with you brewski, to swap for this copy of The Book Thief I received a copy as a bookcrossing surprise gift, from the wildly generous safrolistics. But the equally wild thing is that I have in turn sent that first gift copy to my sister, also a bookcrosser (now how could that have happened, grin) because The Book Thief is also on her wish-list. So I’m figuring one way or another I’ll be able to start reading The Book Thief over the holidays, because it’s the bookcrossing sister I’m staying with over the festive break. That is my sister who lives in Somerset, England as opposed to the one who lives in Ontario, Canada. Huge, huge thanks brewski, a hardback book all the way to Scotland, wow ~ big-hearted bookcrossers ~ a joy to know!!!
As fate would have it, just after I had arranged, with you brewski, to swap for this copy of The Book Thief I received a copy as a bookcrossing surprise gift, from the wildly generous safrolistics. But the equally wild thing is that I have in turn sent that first gift copy to my sister, also a bookcrosser (now how could that have happened, grin) because The Book Thief is also on her wish-list. So I’m figuring one way or another I’ll be able to start reading The Book Thief over the holidays, because it’s the bookcrossing sister I’m staying with over the festive break. That is my sister who lives in Somerset, England as opposed to the one who lives in Ontario, Canada. Huge, huge thanks brewski, a hardback book all the way to Scotland, wow ~ big-hearted bookcrossers ~ a joy to know!!!
Couldn’t whiz this out of my flat before reading it and what a read! I really love Zusak’s writing style, punchy yet light. Despite being in a flat-out spin to move books out of my castle, at super-hyper speed I fought the release of this and am very glad. For one thing it is superb and for another, I know another bookcrosser with this on their wishlist.
Talking there about whizzing this out of my flat along with many other books as on the 4th of September rain damage through roof tiles brought a corner of the plaster ceiling in my living room down. Horror!
This has called for massive re-organisation to allow workmen access. Therefore as I am a pack-rat and not a corner is spare for shifting belongings too, de-cluttering is urgent! Hence, my looking keenly for objects, GULP even book’s, to leave my flat as soon as possible. This one however proved too tempting to pass on unread...
The bookcrosser with this on their wishlist and I are both taking part in the BookCrossing UK, Yahoo Group’s Not So Secret Halloween/Celebrating Autumn Surprise 2009 book swap, and I am thrilled that I have this book for them! To add the icing to my cake, right now it’s making being bed-bound with a dreadful bug infinitely more bearable.
Talking there about whizzing this out of my flat along with many other books as on the 4th of September rain damage through roof tiles brought a corner of the plaster ceiling in my living room down. Horror!
This has called for massive re-organisation to allow workmen access. Therefore as I am a pack-rat and not a corner is spare for shifting belongings too, de-cluttering is urgent! Hence, my looking keenly for objects, GULP even book’s, to leave my flat as soon as possible. This one however proved too tempting to pass on unread...
The bookcrosser with this on their wishlist and I are both taking part in the BookCrossing UK, Yahoo Group’s Not So Secret Halloween/Celebrating Autumn Surprise 2009 book swap, and I am thrilled that I have this book for them! To add the icing to my cake, right now it’s making being bed-bound with a dreadful bug infinitely more bearable.
Thanks both to MmeClinton and Brewski for ensuring this entered my life. And that’s a big thank you indeed!
***A Few Wee Spoilers*** Memorably Death is the narrator here. Death, as a busy man of work sweeping his way through Europe during the Second World War and accompanying that with his dry and note-worthy commentary, is inspired. This tale primarily follows Liesel, an adopted eleven-year-old German girl though the discrete band of characters, even the background figures instantly engage ones interest. Liesel, whose father, she later works out must have been an imprisoned Communist, is delivered for adoption without any explanation by her mother who was probably dying. The adoptive parents the Hubermans, are Hans and Rosa a German couple who live in Molching, a small village outside Munich. Their grown children have left home and it’s the early days of the war. Rosa takes in laundry while Hans, a painter and decorator makes a small extra amount through playing an accordion in the bars some evenings. Liesel’s adoptive family subsequently, for a time, hide a Jew in their basement. Why and how they embarked upon this incalculably dangerous action, and the repercussions it leads to, make a riveting counterpoint to Liesel’s growing understanding of life and her interest in books and reading.
Liesel’s somehow always a tentative character but yet I really noticed that she blossomed in the company of Hans, her adoptive father, she learned to really watch and listen with the hidden Max, and in the presence of Rudy her best friend she learned to be determined, wiley and courageous. Rudy’s twitchy boyness was especially brilliant. I love how the arrival of Max in the Hubermans household demanded that I view the unrelentingly harsh Rosa in a softer light, and I loved Max’s story about The Word Shaker. That Frau Ilsa Hermann’s bathroom robe and slipper toes were decorated with little Nazi insignia made a chilling and tragic little picture that broke my heart.
This is what good writing is about for me, subtle alterations of angle and depth that come to change your understanding of whats been placed before you, almost before you’ve had the chance to realise that’s happened. What a balance, there are bits here as tough to tackle as old gristle standing out against an ease of humour that dazzles, momentarily like fireworks, but yet, that leave a burst of light on the retina of memory.
Reading up to the wire here, I’ll have to stop soon. The desire to continue reading to the books end warring with the desire to get this into the post before I get snookered by the UK Postal Strike and end up delivering this late to its next reader!
***A Few Wee Spoilers*** Memorably Death is the narrator here. Death, as a busy man of work sweeping his way through Europe during the Second World War and accompanying that with his dry and note-worthy commentary, is inspired. This tale primarily follows Liesel, an adopted eleven-year-old German girl though the discrete band of characters, even the background figures instantly engage ones interest. Liesel, whose father, she later works out must have been an imprisoned Communist, is delivered for adoption without any explanation by her mother who was probably dying. The adoptive parents the Hubermans, are Hans and Rosa a German couple who live in Molching, a small village outside Munich. Their grown children have left home and it’s the early days of the war. Rosa takes in laundry while Hans, a painter and decorator makes a small extra amount through playing an accordion in the bars some evenings. Liesel’s adoptive family subsequently, for a time, hide a Jew in their basement. Why and how they embarked upon this incalculably dangerous action, and the repercussions it leads to, make a riveting counterpoint to Liesel’s growing understanding of life and her interest in books and reading.
Liesel’s somehow always a tentative character but yet I really noticed that she blossomed in the company of Hans, her adoptive father, she learned to really watch and listen with the hidden Max, and in the presence of Rudy her best friend she learned to be determined, wiley and courageous. Rudy’s twitchy boyness was especially brilliant. I love how the arrival of Max in the Hubermans household demanded that I view the unrelentingly harsh Rosa in a softer light, and I loved Max’s story about The Word Shaker. That Frau Ilsa Hermann’s bathroom robe and slipper toes were decorated with little Nazi insignia made a chilling and tragic little picture that broke my heart.
This is what good writing is about for me, subtle alterations of angle and depth that come to change your understanding of whats been placed before you, almost before you’ve had the chance to realise that’s happened. What a balance, there are bits here as tough to tackle as old gristle standing out against an ease of humour that dazzles, momentarily like fireworks, but yet, that leave a burst of light on the retina of memory.
Reading up to the wire here, I’ll have to stop soon. The desire to continue reading to the books end warring with the desire to get this into the post before I get snookered by the UK Postal Strike and end up delivering this late to its next reader!
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
Memorably Death is the narrator here. The Book Thief was popped into a box of goodies which was placed into the 2nd class post today. Allowing for the two day national postal strike, this ought to still arrive in time for opening on the 31 October 09. Happy Halloween Lutrus and family! Hopefully some amusements in here for all!
Memorably Death is the narrator here. The Book Thief was popped into a box of goodies which was placed into the 2nd class post today. Allowing for the two day national postal strike, this ought to still arrive in time for opening on the 31 October 09. Happy Halloween Lutrus and family! Hopefully some amusements in here for all!
Many thanks for this book from my wishlist. I shall probably start this one soon and jump it up Mt Toobie.
