Title: The Book ThiefAuthor: Markus ZusakISBN: 9780375842207Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf/2006Pages: 550This book is pegged as YA book. It is a Printz Award winner for 2006. A much talked about book in the blogging world. The story has been told from the perspective of death. I found it very interesting. By the end of it, I changed my mind about death.This book has been set in Nazi Germany in 1939. And it spans 4 years. A 9 year old girl, Liesel Meminger along with her 6 year old brother is being taken by her mother to be given for fostering. Her brother dies and in the graveyard, Liesel finds a book, The Grave Digger's Manual, buried in the snow. She picks it up. This is beginning of a book thief. Her foster father, Hans Hubbermann, although not very educated teaches her to read. Her foster mother Rosa, is aways abusing people. Liesel loves her foster father, she also comes to love her foster mother who despite her foul mouth has abundance of love to give.Liesel develops a lasting friendship with a boy named Rudy Steiner. Hans and Rosa hide a Nazi in their home and Liesel is part of the secret. She comes to like the hidden man and he reciprocates it. And her stealing of books goes on, no matter what.This book is meant to be read by all. It tells us about atrocities of the Nazis. Yet it tells us about hope, faith, belief in good people. Those who risked their own lives to save another. Those who are poor yet do not think twice about feeding another mouth. It speaks about those German people who were in no way responsible for the Holocaust. In fact they abhored it but had no say in the matter.
In no way this is a depressing book. The local people reach out to us, entering our hearts. Hitler destroyed his own country, own people along with the Jews. At the end of it, I came to love death, the narrator. Death has more compassion, more humanity than we humans.
Title: YellowknifeAuthor: Steve ZippISBN: 9780973632118Publisher: Res Telluris, Canada/2007Pages: 286I had requested this book from Steve Zipp for The Canadian Book Challenge, way back in Nov 2007. He had posted it to me in November itself. However, I received it in April 2008. It took six months to reach me. I had assumed that it had been lost in the mail. I read it while travelling to work and back. It took me two days to finish it.I do not know anything about Canada, let alone Yellowknife. This book educated me in many fronts. It is one of those books, which is not easy to review. Although I finished it somedays back, I have been putting off reviewing it. It is kind of very difficult to summarise the novel. Almost fruitless.It is set in 1998, in Yellowknife, which is home for assorted people like bureaucrats and businessmen. Many arrive here for the lure of opportunities. This takes us into a world filled with humour, imagination, hope, love, lost love and much much more. It touches certain myths taking us through a tunnel of humanity. Both mysterious and mystical, we get to read about people who bond despite being strangers. There are no dark characters here, or purely good. The grey shades only endear them to us as we somehow identify with them. The scientific references...biology mixed with physics, chemistry and mathematics instantly gelled with me. Detailed prose too worked well for me. Zipp has used motifs, metaphors which make this an excellent read. Although I had to go and back and forth while reading this, I couldn't leave it in the midst as I do with a few novels. I had to finish it till the end. I got glimpses about a world I know nothing about. Very insightful. Some might not like the book as it is not an easy read. However, it is well worth the effort. I would say, go for it!
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