I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak a few years back now (and as such the details are slightly hazy) but as this is the first book club blog-type thing I have ever written and it is my favourite book I thought it was still the most appropriate place to begin. Review upon review upon review has been written on it (nearly 900 on Amazon alone when I last looked never mind all the 'professional' ones) so I'm going to keep this one short and personal.
I have to admit that there have been times in my life when I haven't read as much as I should but occasionally you take a punt on a book (I'd actually bought this for my wife) and once you start it is impossible to put it down. This book grabbed me emotionally in a way that I find difficult to describe. Suffice to say that if I had had a daughter I wanted to call her Liesel and that I found it difficult to read the last 40 pages as I was crying so much I could barely see them - I am very affected by acts of courage and loss!
Anyway - what do you think of The Book Thief and while you are thinking about that what other Modern Fiction books do you suggest we might want to discuss?
When I first heard the hype about this book I thought “I’ll never read that” it’s certainly something that puts me off a book when everyone thinks it the best thing since sliced bread. And OMG it’s written from “Deaths” perspective? How depressing could this book actually be? In this case I was very, very wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy book group decided to read it on a recommendation. I’m a real bookworm, I have read thousands of books over the years and can lose myself in a book, cook, watch telly, tidy up and vacuum without missing a written word and can honestly say I loved this book so much I couldn’t wait to tell everyone what a brilliant book it was. Brilliant because it made a light go on somewhere in me. My mother’s family are German and I was shocked at how much it made me think about her side of the family growing up during the war and how little I knew about it. Although they were nowhere near Munich the trials of life and growing up during the war would have been felt the same whichever country they were in.
Every character in this book was someone I feel I know. I was privileged to look into their lives and stand beside them as life and death flowed around them.
I finished this book as the rain was coming down one Friday afternoon and I was crying so hard at the end I looked as though I was standing outside in the downpour. I quietly put on my coat and walked to my mum’s house. I handed her the book to read and asked her to just read it over the weekend. My mum read it in a day she couldn’t put it down. The book had the same effect on my mum and for the first time, I felt it was okay to ask things about her family growing up.
I am no nerd but I just immediately had to go to Markus Zusaks page on Facebook to post about how I felt. Of course I found I was not the only person who felt like that. Every post was the same. Including my own at the time proclaiming an undying love for Rudy and his devotion to Liesel.
This book touched my soul.