

Needless to say, I vacation in increments. The trouble is, who could ever replace me? Who could step in while I take a break in your stock-standard resort-style vacation destination, whether it be tropical or of the ski trip variety? The answer, of course, is nobody, which has prompted me to make a conscious, deliberate decision–to make distraction my vacation. It helps me cope, considering the length of time I’ve been performing this job. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.Īs I’ve been alluding to, my one saving grace is distraction. People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it’s quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment.Ī single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. I do, however, try to enjoy every color I see–the whole spectrum.

Personally, I like a chocolate-colored sky. The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?

The only sound I’ll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps. There might be a discovery a scream will dribble down the air.

I will carry you gently away.Īt that moment, you will be lying there (I rarely find people standing up). It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Markus Zusak grew up in Sydney, Australia, and still lives there with his wife and two children.Įxcerpt. Also in 2018, Bridge of Clay was selected as a best book of the year in publications ranging from Entertainment Weekly to the Wall Street Journal. In 2013, The Book Thief was made into a major motion picture, and in 2018 was voted one of America’s all-time favorite books, achieving the 14th position on the PBS Great American Read. His work is translated into more than forty languages, and has spent more than a decade on the New York Times bestseller list, establishing Zusak as one of the most successful authors to come out of Australia.Īll of Zusak’s books – including earlier titles, The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, When Dogs Cry (also titled Getting the Girl), and The Messenger (or I am the Messenger) – have been awarded numerous honors around the world, ranging from literary prizes to readers choice awards to prizes voted on by booksellers. Markus Zusak is the internationally bestselling author of six novels, including The Book Thief and most recently, Bridge of Clay. And because there’s no arguing with a sentiment like that. It will be widely read and admired because it tells a story in which books become treasures. Zusak’s audacity, also on display in his earlier I Am the Messenger. The Book Thief will be appreciated for Mr. One of the most highly anticipated young-adult books in years.Įxquisitely written and memorably populated, Zusak’s poignant tribute to words, survival, and their curiously inevitable entwinement is a tour de force to be not just read but inhabited. This hefty volume is an achievement…a challenging book in both length Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse-Five: with grim, darkly consoling humor.Įlegant, philosophical and moving…Beautiful and important. Zusak may not have lived under Nazi domination, but The Book Thief deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel’s Night. Its grimness and tragedy run through the reader’s mind like a black-and-white movie, bereft of the colors of life. The Book Thief is unsettling and unsentimental, yet ultimately poetic. Young readers need such alternatives to ideological rigidity, and such explorations of how stories matter.
Book thief pdf pdf#
About the Author of The Book Thief PDF Free Download Bookīrilliant and hugely ambitious…Some will argue that a book so difficult and sad may not be appropriate for teenage readers…Adults will probably like it (this one did), but it’s a great young-adult novel…It’s the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, The Book Thief offers us a believable hard-won hope…The hope we see in Liesel is unassailable, the kind you can hang on to in the midst of poverty and war and violence.
