The Book Thief

By: Markus Zusak / Narrated By: Allan Corduner

Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins

Breathtaking; simply lovely!

I know, I know, I know. The Book Thief has been around since, like, forEVER; it’s been made into a movie; I’ve had the audiobook in my Library since 2014 -BUT- I’m barely now getting around to listening to it. So suuuuue me.

And lemme just right up front, get to the end of the book, without spoilers. It’s like this, see. The end started unfolding, and I started to cry. Then one of my cats used the litter box, and I had to pause my tears to clean the danged thing. That done, continued with the story, then another cat, seeing a clean box, decided THAT was the time to use it. Paused my crying again to clean?

Oh noooooo…. cleaned the danged thing, but that gave me time to muse and to mull over what was happening in the story which led to a couple of confused cats wondering why Mom was crying over used litter boxes.

Oooooh, it wasn’t those danged boxes at all; it was just that it’s been a long time since I’ve felt such horror, such heartbreak paired with such innocence and soooo much love. To say I cried ugly hiccuping sobs would be to pretty up the kind of tears that escaped me for the end of this book.

Nazi Germany, and Death is the narrator…

See? Such happy, happy times!

Young Liesel is taken in by a foster family near Munich in an effort to see her safely through the war, but this isn’t before she witnesses the death of her little brother. She will spend the early part of her time with who she now is told to call Mama and Papa having nightmares and clinging to a book she stole, The Gravedigger’s Handbook. Her new Papa will read it to her each and every night to comfort her, see her through those 2 a.m. night terrors.

And things just get more lovely and loving from there. Soon Liesel is surrounded by a scrappy cast of characters all of whom think slurs against sows are names of love to call her. At first, Liesel is cowed by such words of anger, but then she sees the true hearts of the people shouting them, this group of people who are trying to navigate their ways through Hitler’s Germany with all the evils such a country now propagates in the name of patriotism and nationalism.

There’s young Rudy, Liesel’s best friend who is perpetually trying to coax a kiss from her, and Death pulls no punches for us when He tells us of his fate; there’s Mama, a brutish wardrobe of a woman whose greatest and most heartfelt prayer comes in the dead of night, an accordion strapped to her chest as she silently and fervently mumbles her fears to God; there’s good Papa who teaches Liesel to read and who opens the world, however limited it’s become, to her and who shows her just how good men and women behave when faced with evil. And there’s the most heartbreaking character I’ve come across in a long time: The mayor’s wife who, limply and lifelessly, still loves with the whole of her heart and soul, opening the window a crack to let love and hope maybe find its way into her world.

And then there’s Death during war, so very busy, taking the souls of the young along with the old, the citizens caught up in leaders’ visions as well as the soldiers caught up in fighting. He comes to know this Book Thief as she’s been dubbed, through her words, her stories, her valiant attempts to bring life to all she’s seen and been witness to, whether it’s Rudy rescuing a book, Max, their hidden Jew, chronicling the life that touches him briefly as he spends months hiding in the basement, or her love of Papa as he plays his love and frustration out on his accordion. Death has his stories to tell as well, and he guides us through The Book Thief with wit and with love and, many times, with the fatigue of one who’s seen too much and has had to carry too much with the everlasting war.

I agree with the naysayers who lament that this isn’t a book of plot or of action, but I disagree that that somehow makes it somehow not a worthwhile story. What could be better, I ask you, than hearing a young girl with old eyes somehow living through atrocities and coming through with a still-loving heart, open and hopeful? This is the day-to-day, experience-by-experience of a most worthwhile heroine, who lives through her love of reading, who manages bombing raids by reading in bomb shelters, who shares life and love with a crotchety recluse by reading to that woman Chapter 2 and 3 and 4; the ever asked And Then What Happened?

Allan Corduner has been unknown to me as a narrator prior to this, but I searched my Library as soon as I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath. His was such a masterful performance that I HAD to see if I had any more of his work, and I was delighted to see that I have one other. I tell you, if he brings the same pacing, especially in the very emotional parts, the tying together of the weaving story/character strands, I’ll be one happy listener. He was engaging from the get-go; he had me at Death.

About 14 hours long, and I finished this in a day. What meals? What errands?

Nope, I just had time to clean litter boxes,

And to cry my living and breathing and aching heart out…