![]() So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.īy her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. We witness her form a solid and strong friendship with local boy Rudy, develop a love for literature, fuelled by stolen books from the mayor’s wife’s library.Ī beautiful, lyrical heart-wrenching and powerful tale, rich with ingenuity and imagination, The Book Thief is a love letter to words to books to their power for both good and evil and to friends that become family. What follows is a poignant coming-of-age tale, in which the spirited young girl grows up against the backdrop of Nazi Germany. RELATED: My January picks for The Curio Collection And while Rosa is often foul-mouthed and abrasive, Hans swiftly becomes a beloved and supportive papa to the young girl. After her father’s capture and her brother’s death, she’s handed over to foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann who live on Himmell Street in the town of Molching, just outside Munich. Suffice to say that The Book Thief is the only story I’ve read that’s been narrated by death, and within the first chapter or two I was able to see why it’s been hailed by so many as a modern classic.Ī touching tale that follows the life of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who’s just shy of ten years old when we first meet her, The Book Thief is set is pre-WW II Germany. I’ve genuinely lost count of the amount of the amount of people who’ve told me to read it over the years, but it was only when I recently recorded a podcast with Clay Zane Comber – author and owner of beautiful bookshop Bouquiniste – that I finally moved it to the top of my never ending TBR pile and sat down to read it. First published sixteen years ago, I’ve owned various copies over the year – culminating one that Markus signed and dedicated to me after an event we hosted with him at Gertrude & Alice last year. I’m well aware I say this about an awful lot of books that I read – and subsequently write about – on The Literary Edit, but I have been meaning to read The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak for absolutely yonks.
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