The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

There is something to be said about authors who write books from a child's perspective. I am not sure that I could ever be capable of such a feat as it is very hard to remember how a child thinks (even if I am a teacher). Markus Zusak not only can embrace the inner child but he can do it as a little girl. I love reading books about the nostalgia of childhood and even about those hard times that we all went through (no matter what decade we all lived through).

Although essentially the book is told by death (yes you read correctly) by death (or the grim reaper as I pictured it in my head) it follows death just before and during World War II. As most of us know during that devastating time death was very busy and he came across our protagonist (Liesel) a couple of times. Death first meets Liesel just after her brother dies and that is when Liesel finds a copy of her first book about grave digging and steals it. She is then sent to foster care and we find out that Liesel cannot read. Liesel's foster father teachers her how to read and she then develops a love for reading.

Liesel's life during the war is somewhat placid. She plays with the neighborhood kids and she helps her foster mother with her job of doing the laundry. Liesel's job is the deliver the laundry. Liselel develops a relationship with the mayors wife and is amazed by her library. Liesel starts stealing books and although the mayors wife knows she dosn't mind but Liesel feels very guilty. During a Nazi book burning Liesel even steals a book.

Her foster parents hide a Jew in their basement. The Jew, Max Vandenburg , becomes very friendly with Liesel and she learns to respect and admire him.

The story continues (I will not spoil the ending for you), however my favorite line that I have ever read in a book comes from death when he says: "I am haunted by humans."

I was speaking to my friend Greg the other night and he had a good point about authors. he said that they [authors] are either great story tellers or great writers. I believe Markus Zusak is both. The book Thief is a wonderful yet very simple story about childhood innocence, life, death, and right vs. wrong or good vs. evil and even redemption. I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to invest time into a story and to people who have an open mind as Zusak writes in very short stanzas (that took a while for me to get used to).

Overall I give this book a 7 out of 10

There are some great lines and quotes from the book, some more memorable ones that I highlighted are:

"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."

"I witness the ones that are left behind, crumbled among the jigsaw puzzles of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs"

"I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS."

Great House by Nicole Krauss

Every once in a while I will read something that affects me on a personal level. It becomes so intense that it is like a relationship, a secret relationship that I have with the characters of the story. It is not only that I can relate to the characters, feel their pain, happiness, anger, and fear it is that the author allows me to feel that way in a very subtle and almost sneaky sort of way. There are only a couple books that have made me feel that way in the past, The World According to Garp, She’s Come Undone, and Lolita are just to name a few. Those books took me to places in the human psyche where I never thought I would ever go. Sometimes while reading about these characters I start to imagine who they are in my life, inevitably I believe that authors model their characters after real people in their lives. My favorite authors are ones that make me reread the sentences to make sure I understand their full impact. I also love when I have to research exactly what the author is talking about. Often times that research leads me to other authors that have inspired them and I in turn engulf their work just to see how the influence exists. Nicole Krauss is a fairly unrecognized author in the mainstream, but I have read one of her other books, The History of Love , and was so inspired to read Great House. Krauss has an amazing way with words and reading her books is like listening to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” for the first time. She invents characters with so many flaws and internal struggles that you start to question your own internal struggles. With sentences like, “When you die, are you Hungry” or "Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering,” I almost have to do a double take to make sure I really understand their impact. Krauss makes you wish that you could use simple words and weave them into these sentences that take your breath away. I must admit that I had to read The History of Love twice because it was really intense and I wanted to make sure that I grasped the characters and the essential meaning of the book. I am sure that in a couple of years I will reread The Great Room. Krauss has a formula for her books and she tends to write in a choppy sort of way in that each chapter is the story of another’s life. It is sort of like she threw the pages up in the air and where they landed is where she unravels the stories. At first it is hard to keep up with the characters; a fifty year old woman who is telling a story to a judge about her life and a desk that she fostered, A father and son gripping with the death of their wife and mother and trying to understand each other, A professor who is trying to unlock the secret of his wife’s past, and a tormented thirty something who is in love with an antiques dealers’ son who has depressive tendencies. All these stories surround this desk that was stolen from a Jewish family when the Nazi’s came into power. What I love about this novel (and her other books) is how she is able to connect all the characters together for brief chapters, yet you are still able to relate and connect to the characters on a deeper level. I must admit that at the end of the book I got upset because it was ending. I didn’t exactly like the way it ended, and I had some questions and I had to reread certain pages to fully grasp the novels conclusion. The persona stories within the novels are marvelous and any author who can see a perspective from another sex (other than their own) is a great story teller. I am glad that Nicole Krauss exists and I hope to read more of her work. I give this book a 8 out of 10.