The Book Thief

I know that I may be guilty of slipping into superlatives when describing books I have read (after all, I am a librarian and former bookseller), but dammit, this novel by the Australian Marcus Zusak is a fucking brilliant book. Set in a small town outside Munich in Nazi Germany, The Book Thief is narrated by Death, a blunt but strangely sympathetic narrator, and tells the story of a young girl placed with foster parents who takes fondly to stealing books. Her foster father teaches her to read with the Gravediggers Manual, the book she stole while watching her younger brother being buried, and over the next few years she steals a small collection of books that become very meaningful to her. Surrounded by Hitler Youth and adults who place their faith in the Fuhrer, Liesel similarly trusts that Hitler must know what he is doing until the day she meets a young Jewish man named Max that her foster parents are helping to hide in the basement. Max carried with him a copy of Mein Kampf, and sets about writing beautifully simple allegories on the pages of Mein Kampf, which he has ripped out and painted white. He writes "The Standover Man" and "The Word Shaker", the latter a bold statement of the damage caused to all of Germany's people by Hitler's words. Throughout the story Death follows a non-linear storytelling technique, saying things like "Of course, I'm being rude - I'm spoiling the ending" as he collects the millions of souls that expired during World War II. His only comfort is the colours he sees in the sky each time he carries out his grisly job; colour has been his only vacation during a profession that has spanned all eternity. In a very fitting literary ending, Liesel's own book, The Book Thief, finds its way into Death's hands after she is the lone survivor of her street being bombed near the end of the war. She lives to be an old woman, but like Death, is haunted by the souls of humans she has known. It's beautiful, it's weird, and although I have given most of it away, you should definitely read it.