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The book thief
Black Swan
by Markus Zusak
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88 New and Used from: £ 0.49
List Price: £7.99
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| Product Details |
ISBN/ASIN: 0552773891
Release Date:
Sales Rank: 118
Average Rating: 
Media: Paperback
Audience Rating:
Product Group: Book
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| Product Description |
| Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This book is a story of: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist fighter; and quite a lot of thievery. |
| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 4.5/5 | | Amazing: Rating: 5/5 |
| One of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. Zusak has the ability to take you on a journey that changes your perspective of life, friendship and love. It is joyous, heart breaking, funny and infuriating, often all on one page. I don't want to give away any of the story, I just want to say READ IT! It has become one of my most treasured books. | | Stirring!: Rating: 5/5 |
Another very successful title of the last decade that has been mentioned in more than one top ten list. In fact reading one of these lists recently I realised that this was one of only three titles on such a list that I had not read!
When I looked on Amazon recently there were already 603 reviews published of which 445 are five star ones. There are a handful of reviews from readers that did not like the novel but they are insignificant when a novel is so popular.
Out of the three books that I needed to read to have read all ten recommendations for the decade it is interesting that two of them were both about the Nazi Germany during WWII, a subject I maybe subconsciously steer away from. The other one was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas similar in that it also has a child as the main protagonist. I only mention it here as I feel if you read one of these you should read both. I obviously made a mistake by avoiding them for so long.
The Book Thief is written in a truly unusual style, in fact I do not think I have ever come across anything else written in a style quite like this before. Short sections that all link together almost like a diary, but the weirdest thing of all for me was the fact that the story is narrated by Death. One needs to accept that a story told by Death is almost certainly going to be a tear jerker which it is but it is also very compassionately told. This is not a book to enjoy as such but it is a story that will make you think, I suspect not for the first time about the awful atrocities that were committed in Nazi Germany during the second World War.
The young protagonist is Liesel who is sent to a foster family for her own safety in 1939 when her parents are sent to a concentration camp. Set in a small German town called Molching it is basically the story of her day to day life on Himmel Street plus the other folk that become her friends and neighbours. Liesel steals books to feed her desire to learn to read and write, hence the title! Work and food are scarce and as the war progresses death is always close in one way or another.
Death's account of Liesels life is thanks to the author full of descriptive imagery which will provide you with strong images of immense cruelty and human misery but also of love and kindness to others.
If you have not already read this, I think I am in the minority in not having done so before now, I recommend you do so. It will stir your emotions but it is for all that an easy quick read. Just make sure you have the tissues ready. | | READ IT: Rating: 5/5 |
Beautiful, stunning, original.
Moving, emotional, tense.
I wonder why it has taken me so long to read this book - please don't listen to anyone who says it's depressing - it's not. It's quite simply amazing. | | Truly Wonderful: Rating: 5/5 |
I have never written a review before and although there are many I can't resist adding to them.
This book is truly fabulous. I started it one night and finished it the next. Usually I put finished books on the shelf even if I have enjoyed them but never have I woken up the next day and read the last few pages again. The last 2 pages in particular made me bawl like a baby again and again.
This book will stay with me for a long time and I am glad of that. | | One of the best reads ever: Rating: 5/5 |
| This is a slow burner,beautifully written and observed, at the same time shocking. Its one of the best books i have ever read. | |
