Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
 Miss it - Miss out! July 2, 2008
I'm a complete book worm and this book has gone straight into my top 5 all time best books!
Totally absorbing. Fantastically written.
Sad, happy, poignant,life affirming (even though the narrator is death!)
The characters get into your soul and it will stay with you for a long time after you've read it. I finished it a few days ago and have recommended it to everyone and now, I want to go back and read it all over again!
It's a cliche but if you only read one book this year, make sure it's this one!
Couldn't praise or recommend it more!
Haunted by humans - and by this wonderful book July 1, 2008
I approached this book with some apprehension. The cover illustration on my copy seemed almost twee and the selected review quote - `When Death tells a story, you really have to listen' - contrived and gimmicky. The first few pages did little to relieve my reservations either. Death, the narrator, has a glib style, using colloquialisms and jokey asides, again worrying me that a topic as serious and solemn as life in Nazi Germany and the plight of the Jews during the War was to be treated in such a manner.
If any other readers find themselves approaching this book in a similar frame of mind, my advice is `Do please read on!' After the brief and unusual scene setting by Death, the narrative turns to a more straightforward but compelling account of the life of Liesel Meminger. At the start of the book, in the winter of 1939, she is nine years old and being taken south with her brother by their mother to a small town near Munich. Here Death intervenes again, to my irritation at the time, to tell us `We know now, of course, that the boy didn't make it'.
Liesel is left with foster parents, the wonderfully strong and gentle Hans Huberman and Rosa his stern, but loving and principled wife. Many sections in this book are devoted to everyday life in this household and paint a picture of tenderness amongst all the privations and fear, especially as Liesel is taught by Hans to read using a book she has `acquired' at her brother's graveside. These moving scenes are intensified and compounded with danger and suspense when the family shelter a Jewish man in their cellar for many months.
Life outside the house is also painted in vivid detail. The hungry wanderings of Liesel and her friends, the interminable football games, the cruelty of bullies and the strength of enduring friendships over years, all provide emotional hooks for a reader. Liesel's membership of the Hitler Youth was, in true adolescent fashion, `something to do', a social activity, with the hateful ideology failing to register. There is comedy here too; Liesel reports that, when joining the Hitler Youth, the first thing they do is to `check that your Heil Hitlering is working properly'.
A major theme within the book is the power of the written and spoken word. Liesel acquires her second book from under the noses of the Nazis as they ignite one of their trademark town square conflagrations. As she hurries home with her smouldering bounty hidden beneath her clothes, the reader can feel the heat and pain, whilst also sharing in the defiance and sense of triumph.
The horrors of Nazism and the war are ever present and come to the fore in certain dramatic sections. But for me, this book is as much about the finest qualities - love, heroism, compassion, sacrifice - to be found in people. I had started the book, which extends to almost six hundred pages, wondering whether such a length was absolutely necessary. By the end, the deeply, deeply moving end, I did not want these characters to leave me. I had come to know them, even, seemingly, Death, so well.
Death, who in the final sentences says, no jokes and gimmicks to be heard now, `... I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race'. Death, who concludes the novel with the words `... I am haunted by humans'.
This book has haunted me since reading it, but as much with its depths of warmth and hope as the horrors amongst which these wonders can flower. A wonderful read.
This is definately one worth stealing May 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book a few months ago and it still has me thinking of how peoples lives were changed (even now) beyond recognition and belief by one mans' hatred. It is a book full to the brim with beauty,love,innocence,bravery,hatred,brutality,ignorance,indifference and tragedy. Truly a reflection of humanity at its best and worst. I loved every minute of it, so beautifully written even death seemed alive. I recommend this to everyone who loves stories whether based on truth or fairy tale, I will read it again and again its that kind of book.....
 Whats that all about? April 9, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this book about 8 months ago and only got around to reading it recently. It came highly recommended to me by a number of people who had read it. I must confess that when I had got over the idea that I had to like it, I realised that it just didn't live up to expectations at all. The premise of the book is good. It tells the a story of how the War affected ordinary German citizens. It debunks the myth that everyone in Germany during the war was a Nazi sympathiser, and and that overnight they all became "bad" people. This is interesting and a subject that I think deserves more attention from writers in general. But the book is badly constructed. It's deficiencies are added to by a bizarre narration by "Death",which is intensely annoying as almost every chapter he has a litle diatribe about the meaning of certain words or little clues about who is going to die when and also at times it's like he is addressing the narration to children and talks in a patronising way. I also felt that some of the main charachters were scarcely believable. They just don't behave the way kids of that age behave. They are heavily laden with pointless idiosyncracies. There are good points to the book as well and I found the grown up charachters to be a little more believable. But the fact that every piece of dialogue ends with the words "saumench" or "saukerl" or "arschloch" is extremely irritating. It's a shame, without the "Narrator", with a little more realism injected into the child charachters, I think that the book could have gone somewhere important. As it is I can't really say that I enjoyed it. To be fair to the author, his ability is not in question, although I haven't read any of his other books it is obvious that he has what it takes. I just think he made a few executive decisions regarding this book which didn't work out.
A far better book I felt was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. A similar story, told from an unusual viewpoint. About one third the size of this book, but gets the message across far more effectively and leaves a longer lasting impression.
Heart rending February 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Words fail me to adequately describe this book. It evokes an entire range of emotions with its beautiful, lyrical description of the lives and events of the people of Himmel Street, particularly a little book thief. I cannot imagine how anyone could read this book and not be touched (and in tears by the end).
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