The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

 
Tuesday 15th of November 2011
This is a book that you have to struggle through in the beginning. Don't give up it's wonderful. You become immersed in the story of the tough little tomboy  Liesle, her adoptive family the Hubermans and the boy next door, Rudy. The fact that the book describes Hitlers effect on the local Germans' family life shines through now and then but you tend to ignore this, because it's to depressing to take in; you just want to be a fly on the Hubermanns wall and see what's coming up next. The story is told from the perspective of "death" , which we felt was the worse aspect of the book - none of us could see the point of  Death being the narrator and we felt his monologues tended to be cliched. However, leaving this aside, the Book Thief is a powerful and moving story about first love, and humanity shining through in the most desperate circumstances.
We all liked it and were wondering if it will make it to the big screen like the last two books we read.

The soup complimented the conversation very well Ulrika's delicious lentil soup.

One Day by David Nicholls

We read One Day in June 2011 after being tipped off by a few other readers. I was very impressed by the gripping story although it was so "girl next door" kind of a story. We have all been there in terms of being young in London so it was great to relive the ups and down being young, poor and sometimes disillusioned. The way the disaster was described was very powerful in the non-event way it was described. Some hated it but I loved it. So matter of fact without any extra drama added. So totally unpredicted and unexpected.  We all agreed that we would have hated the guy, but kind of liked him because Emma did. The characterisations where really well done.
I am sorry, I forgot who attended since it was such a long time ago the meeting was, but we promise to get better on updating the blog. Today we are discussing The book thief over a bowl of lentil soup and red wine.