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| The Book Thief | 
 enlarge | Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Black Swan
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.86
You Save: £4.13 (52%)
New (37) from £2.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  152 reviews
Sales Rank: 8
Media: Paperback
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.6
ISBN: 0552773891
EAN: 9780552773898
ASIN: 0552773891
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 147 more reviews...
 Should I read this book? July 8, 2008
You have questions, of course... So, should I read this book, "The Book Thief"? Is it any good? Is it yet another depressing book about Nazis and Jews and the Second World War? What is this all about - Death as the narrator - sounds contrived...
I had seen this book, gracing the shelves in bookshops and, to be honest, was attracted by the cover but not sure that I wanted to read another novel about the horrors of the Holocaust. I went with my first instinct - the cover felt right...
This book is not a harrowing hike through the charnel houses of 1940's Europe. It is a simple tale of the trivia which make up human lives. It is moving and rich and captures the simplicity of childhood, the joy of friendship and the love of family in a way both rewarding and entertaining. War is simply the backdrop, the uncontrollable randomness which changes the course of lives with no regard for our individual hopes and desires, for the balance sheet of rights and wrongs, for the things we have yet to do and the things we have left undone...
If you are going to read this book - and I strongly recommend it - do not allow yourself to be derailed by the first 30 pages or so... The book starts with the usually detached narrator introducing himself as the personification of death. In these first few pages, it seems an artifice. In the final analysis, this device allows the narrator to observe the human condition from without, with a slightly confused, bemused air over the antics of humanity. For much of the story - and it is that, a good story - the narrator simply fades back into the pages and fulfils the conventional role.
It takes a good 30 to 50 pages for the story to begin to engage the reader in the very human and skilfully drawn characters that make up its pages. Liesel is a German girl displaced by the churning social re-engineering delivered by Nazism into the hands of a poor, uncouth, but good-hearted foster family - "salt of the earth", you might say. The story which unfolds sometimes smacks of Richmal Crompton's "Just William", but with a mature poignancy pointing to the inherent threat in the new social order. The author litters his text with anthropomorphism and transferred epithet, but with a skill and passion that makes everything come alive, the walls and fabric of the story breathe with emotion and are responsive to the goings on around them.
In the end, this is a beautiful and well-written tale of the magic that fills ordinary lives to make them extraordinary in a way that only those closest to them may ever see. The greatness of great men lives on but the men themselves are truly lost to us as it is the living of a life that gives it its true resonance: it is the minds and memories and hearts which have shared most intently and touched the lives of those souls now lost to us who can truly know and cherish who the dead once were. This book reminds us of that...
 Very hard to read July 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is very hard to read. The writer tried so hard to tell us the story from the point of view of a ghost, and tried very hard to be inventive, as some reviewers said. But it is NOT. In recent years, we have got the American Beauty which is written exactly the same way. This is a bad copy at that.
From the pure literary point of view, this is a bad book, because of these factors: the narrator is too remote, and unbelievable, the story is weak for the readers. It is anything but engaging. There is no urge in me when I turned the pages. If it is not for the fact that I paid for it, I would not go beyond page 50. So it is definitely not a page-turner.
The writer also tried very hard to give the book a mood of depression. But he was not successful at doing that at all. The impression from the story is first and foremost too remote and not engaging for the readers and it is that make the story irrelevant somehow. The book is full of interior monologue, narrative summery, character description that peppered with very little dialogue. There is a character summery almost on every other page in big fat letters which seems to tell people: remember this, you stupid readers! Throughout the book, you can see hundreds if not thousands classic examples that your teacher of literature at school have warned you not to make.
The sad thing is: popular novel is by no means good literature. That is a fact. The reason? Lots of them. At least some of them are: most of the people who read novels are either people who only care to read stories, or people who are easily satisfied by any literary story. And boy, they are patient! A book with such problematic magnitude can receive such tremendous review is beyond my belief. The publisher has not even done any decent work to eliminate the editing failure.
Do publishers really know what they are talking about? I don't think so. Don't forget, When Joanna Rowling (J.K. Rowling)'s agent sent her Harry Potter manuscript to 12 big publishers in 1996, they all rejected. So, who is the judge for a good novel, you people out there who can be so easily satisfied with any kinds of stories. And they needn't be good.
Beatiful book July 3, 2008
My mum gave me this book to read, which is usual a bad sign, but I have throughly enjoyed it. Death is the narrator, which should be depressing, but in a weird way it's uplifting.
It's a wonderful story about an horrific time and I'm surprised by how much I loved it!
 I dont really understand why this is a bestseller July 2, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I usually buy bestsellers and books with good Amazon reviews because I trust the majority's opinion. However, I honestly dont understand what's so amazing about 'The Book Thief'. I personally would not recommend this book.
What I liked about it is the beginning (which is quite rare) it seemed so unique and magical. I fell in love with the idea of Death being the narrator and couldnt wait to find out what Mr Grim Reaper had to say. But of all the stories Death could have told us, sadly he chose a pretty boring one. Actually I dont think it's the story itself was boring (because I guess the events of Nazi Germany are quite interesting, if that's the right word to describe them) I just dont think that this story needed all 554 pages it was given.
The story pretty much goes like this: Liesel woke up, she got out of bed, brushed her teeth, scratched her head, looked in the mirror...etc. Which I think is really unnecessary.
Overall, the beginning was good, the middle was incredibly boring and the end was predictable (partly because Death decided to tell us the ending right away, so you'll find out what happens at the end after reading the first 20 pages) The Book Thief is not a bad book, I actually think it's interestingly written, but it's not the kind of book you cant put down; it's the kind of book you have to force yourself to pick up again.
 Unusual, really good. July 2, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I liked this book. It wasn't the best written novel i've ever read but i still coudn't put it down. It's really unusual but it works. I'd highly recommend reading it.
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