The Book Thief

By: Markus Zusak

Narrated by: Allan Corduner

Don’t miss Bridge of Clay, Markus Zusak’s first novel since The Book Thief.

The extraordinary number-one New York Times best seller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist - books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

“The kind of book that can be life-changing.” (The New York Times)

“Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” (USA Today)

©2006 Markus Zusak (P)2006 Random House Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group

Critic reviews

• Book Sense Book of the Year Award, Children's Literature, 2007

"The astonishing characters, drawn without sentimentality, will grab readers." (Booklist)
"Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers....An extraordinary narrative." (School Library Journal)
"The Book Thief will appeal both to sophisticated teens and adults with its engaging characters and heartbreaking story." (Bookmarks Magazine)

Glad I took a chance.

I had my doubts about reading this book. I have a hard time with books about WWII Germany. I knew this would probably be a heartbreaker too but for some reason I decided to take it on. Maybe because the book was about books, and I usually like that genre; maybe because the reviews were so good; certainly not because I read it was appropriate for "sophisticated teens and adults." For whatever reason, I am glad I selected The Book Thief. It was incredibly well-written. The characters completely came to life. While there certainly was heart-brake, the heart-warming more than made up for it. This is a book for all ages. The narrator was outstanding and all and all, it was a book I will not soon forget.

Wow! Just Wow!

Any additional comments?

Honestly, I didn't want to read this book. Nazi Germany has never been a subject of great interest to me. However, It had been sitting around in my Audible app for about 6 months, and I'd listened to all of my other audiobooks, so I figured now was as good of a time as any to give it a shot.

Let me just say that The Book Thief broke my heart. It really did. The writing was beautiful and brilliant. Not long after starting it, I found myself absorbed by the story. I couldn't stop thinking about Liesel Meminger. I think the moment I knew I was going to love this book was when she described her new papa's eyes. Their relationship was by far my favorite aspect of the book.

The author actually gives the ending away before he describes the events leading up to it. At first, I thought that this was going to bother me, but It's just made the book more powerful. This book made me FEEL so much. I felt it when Liesel was scared, ecstatically happy, unbelievably sad, blazingly angry, and I felt it when she loved fiercely. It was definitely her love that broke my heart. I cried for the last 20 minutes of the audiobook. I'd fought tears a few times throughout the book, but there was no stopping them by the end. This was such a touching book that I would definitely recommend. (Also, I'm glad I listened to this book rather than read it because I wouldn't have known how to pronounce many of the words.)

Amazing

I can't say enough good things about this book. It was one of the best books I have ever read/listened to. So true and so sad and heart warming, bitter sweet. It will break your heart, I promise.I made the mistake of listening to the end at a restaurant while eating lunch one day at work and cried my eyes out in public over my philly cheese steak. It is about love and hope and family and friendship and loss and the power of words and books. It is beautiful and everyone should listen to it.

The narrator is positively brillant as well. He does the German accents and the characters of both male and female young and old superbly. I can't wait to hear more from him.

Listen to it, really.

Moving and thought provoking

What made the experience of listening to The Book Thief the most enjoyable?

This book is narrated from the viewpoint of Death. Capturing souls of those who pass. This wasn't demonic or anything like that, it was Death the facilitator between this world and the next. Interesting.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Book Thief?

I love Liesel's books, the books she steals and the one she writes.

What does Allan Corduner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

WOW! Such a voice for the perspective of Death.

Any additional comments?

This topic of WWII is difficult at best to write a novel about with compassion to people. During my reading I did some research on WWII and found it is estimated that over 40 million people died in this world war. I can't even imagine this number. This book contained descriptions of how people lived in fear during this time. The book is likely on a reading list for young readers due to the age of the main character but I sure think this book would benefit from co-reading with a young person and an older person to describe more of the details.

There are a number of deaths and while they are not graphic in detail they are described. Even a suicide is described briefly. If this bothers the reader it is best to skip this book.

The people who lived through WWII have my complete respect. They saw and lived through the worst time in history. It want to keep living is an amazing feat considering the horrible things that must have crossed the news and been reality for those in fighting zones.

I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't too depressing and it was enlightening and even fun. I was sad when the book ended. I wanted to know more of the lives of the survivors of WWII and Liesel's family/friends.

A very good book.

Great Book Great Narrator

I found this to be a great read that really helped the time pass as my boyfriend and drove to see family for Thanksgiving. The narrator is really fantastic and my boyfriend, who's a natural German speaker actually said the narrator managed the German words pretty well. I do not know any German and didn't have trouble at all understanding as the author switches from German to the English translations in a very natural way that make the use of German into a descriptive element that pulls you into the story and time. The story is a bit slow to pick up on audio that I think it wouldn't be in written form. The story jumps around a bit especially at the beginning so some may find it hard to follow. However, my boyfriend's audio comprehension isnt the best, he find it hard to follow many readers but had no trouble with this book. I wouldn't say this is a book for young children (this is the Hitler era of German history) though and there are some minor curse words. I note this only because that bothers some people. While the story is fantastical, it is told by Death, I found the characters refreshingly honest and appealing. The author avoids the simplistic cliches of good guys and bad, instead giving us actual people with the merits and flaws and history that shape their lives.

The Book Thief Steals Hearts, Too

By the time this book finishes, Leisl, Rudi and the Hubermanns will feel like people you have known and loved forever. Leisl's story is both heartbreaking and beautiful. Given up to foster care by an impoverished, Communist mother during the Third Reich, ten year old Leisl is taught to read, to trust and to love by her foster father, Hans Hubermann. As she learns and grows, she touches other lives through her love for words. The narrator does a marvelous job with the voices and German accents--they do not sound like caricatures, but like real people. Zusak's writing is unique and elegant. He has a very sensory style that I found very appealing. He writes the kind of sentences that you notice for the quality of the language as well as the thought expressed. I did not want this book to end.

Powerful but Almost Too Precious

"Come with me and I'll tell you a story," says Death in the prologue of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (2006). Death then tells about the first time he encountered Liesel Meminger, destined to become the Book Thief, on a train in Nazi Germany when the nine-year-old girl's mother was taking her and her little brother to the small town of Molching to their new foster parents (being the wife of a persecuted and disappeared communist husband, she was unable to support her children). Death visited the train then to get Liesel's brother. The remainder of the novel is based on Death's reading of Liesel's eponymous autobiography, as well as on his own perception of humanity and philosophy of life, focusing on a few years during Hitler's Third Reich.

The Book Thief (Zusak's novel) has a suspenseful, funny, and moving story, a vivid historical setting, and great characters: Rosa Hubermann (dispenser of insults like "saumensch" and "saukerl" like hugs) and her husband Hans (possessor of kind silver eyes and an accordion), Rudy Steiner (free spirited emulator of Jesse Owens), Max Vanderberg (amateur boxer and picture book creator), and, of course, Liesel (brave, loving, empathetic, and intelligent girl). The book interestingly depicts WWII and Nazi Germany and the Holocaust from the point of view of Germans; in addition to being actively or passively responsible for supporting Hitler and the Holocaust, they were also victims (however guilty) of horrific bombing raids, and there were some brave and humane people among them. The Book Thief explores the mixed nature of humanity and life and embraces tolerance, courage, love, and the power of words and books.

Death is quite a storyteller, using much suspenseful foreshadowing and many original metaphors. Needing distractions in his line of work, he occasionally becomes interested in someone like Liesel, "One of those perpetual survivors, an expert at being left behind." He is everywhere at the right time, anywhere someone is dying, to carry their souls away. And he is regularly impressed by how beautiful and brutal, ugly and glorious, brilliant and damning humanity is. Needless to say, Death is not a supporter of the Fuhrer or of war in general, because they cause too much human death. (Apparently animals have no souls...) I began feeling, however, that Death is TOO sympathetic and poetic. When he says, "Even Death has a heart," I began thinking that maybe he has too much of one.

Zusak writes a rich style, replete with fresh, vivid descriptions and phrases: "Before she could answer, the wooden spoon came down on Liesel Meminger's body like the gait of God. Red marks like footprints, and they burned." And "She settled into the long arms of grass." And "The sky was the color of Jews." But I began feeling that Zusak strives too hard too often to charm too much via striking metaphors, especially when evoking the magical power of words. Although at first phrases like "When he spoke, it was the taste of a whisper" were neat, after a while they started drawing too much provocative and precious attention to themselves:

"His words manipulated Tommy's face."
"The words were flung at her, landing somewhere on the concrete step."
"The words landed on the table and positioned themselves in the middle."
"Rudy's voice reached over and handed Liesel the truth. For a while, it sat on her shoulder, but a few thoughts later, it made its way to her ear."
"Somewhere, inside her were the souls of words. They climbed out and stood beside her."

As a result, other striking descriptions also began cloyingly showing off: "His eyes staggered." And "The taste of Christmas needles chimed inside her lungs."

Another stylistic feature that Zusak uses too much (though this is true of much current children's and YA literature), I felt, are short, punchy sentences and one-sentence paragraphs, as in this series:

"Their mother was asleep.
I entered the train.
My feet stepped through the cluttered aisle and my palm was over his mouth in an instant.
No one noticed.
The train galloped on.
Except the girl."

The reader Allan Corduner is skilled and engaged, bringing Zusak's vivid characters to even greater life, but his manner also at times became too much, striving too hard for emotion and impact when combined with the author's striving too hard for effect. (I didn't get that feeling at all when listening to Corduner's reading of Magyk.)

Finally, although the novel is funny, moving, terrible, and beautiful--and I do recommend it--I think that because it verges on being over-written by Zusak and over-read by Corduner, its power is lessened.

A Grown Up Heartbreaker

Calling The Book Thief a kids' books is sort of like saying the same thing about To Kill a Mockingbird. While the main character is a child, and there's nothing overly complicated structurally or thematically, making it accessible to a younger audience, the emotions are complex, the writing rich, and the subject mature. Ok... so maybe that was a glorified way of saying it's a good book for many ages, but coming across such a find is tough.

Many great books have been written about The Holocaust, but one of the things that makes The Book Thief unique is the treatment of Germans caught up in the insane nationalism of Nazi Germany. While it may be a bit tongue in cheek to say that everyone in The Book Thief is "human", Zusak does a fantastic job of keeping humanity at the forefront of the story. Death, fear, cruelty, love, compassion, selflessness, and loss are all players, but The Book Thief puts humans first, and what they do second.

A definite buy for anyone looking for a well narrated, genuinely emotional listen.

Touched my heart and soul.

This book was such a gratifying story to listen too. My mother was a child while the war went on around her in Hamburg, Germany, and so I couldn't help but picture her while listening day after day. The story is sweet, scary, sassy, touching and takes us back to a time when the most atrocious happenings were going on, while naiveté and innocence of children was still the norm. I loved the characters and I cannot praise the narrator enough, for bringing them all to life within my mind. It is a story I am sure to read again someday, and one that I shall not soon forget. I had a great time.

There were wooden teardrops and an oaky smile

Without an exageration I can say that it was one of the best books I ever read...

I finished the reading (i.e. listening) in cold Paris, March 2009 walking on the dark streets of this city. And the first thing I did after I finished was to go back to the beginning and to start it again....

"First the colors. Then the humans" - this is how it starts, the story told from the perspective of ... death personified. The narration brings some far but strong recollections of that used by Norman Mailer in his "The Castle in the Forest", but don't take it as criticism - in fact it is a praise....

What makes Zusak's book such increadible experience? First and foremost - his vacabulary, his parlance, his prose poetry. Bacause of these, you loose the sense of reading the novel, and you feel like you are reading the poetry...

"I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away. "

"The girl loved that-- the shivering snow"

One of my friends told me, when recommended the book couple of weeks ago: "I did not know how one could live through the words as it is in the book" ...

But there is also something else. The book has deep meaning and strong message. It is about the most dark period of human history - Nazi Germany. It's about Jewish persecution and Holocaust. But it is also about forgivness, about love, about the simple fact that not all Germans were Nazi and not all Nazis were killers. It's about life in hard times, and about difficult greatness.

And - last but not least - Allan Corduner's narration is one of the best on Audible !!!

Mirek Sopek