The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”~ Death

 

From the Publisher

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul. ~randomhouse

At home in Sydney, Australia, a few years ago Markus Zusak had a hard time believing anyone would read his forthcoming novel, “The Book Thief.”  

“I always imagined people trying to recommend it and being asked what it’s about and saying: ‘It’s set in Nazi Germany. It’s narrated by Death. It’s 560 pages long. You’ll love it,’ ” he said.

Mr. Zusak got it wrong. In the six years since Knopf published “The Book Thief” it has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States alone, and has yet to leave The New York Times’s best-seller list. The paperback is on its 36th printing, and the hardcover has had 30. It’s the rare young-adult title, not part of a series, that appeals to both children and adults, male and female.~nytimes

Interview with Markus Zusak

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

“I will not cut for stone,” runs the text of the Hippocratic oath, “even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.”

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.  ~review by random house

Interview with Abraham Verghese

Academy Award-winning director Susanne Beir has signed on to direct a film adaptation of Indian American author Abraham Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone,” reports Variety. Scott Teems (“That Evening Sun”) will pen the screenplay to “Cutting for Stone.” The film will be shot in Africa and the United States. ~indiawest

Quotes from Cutting for Stone

• “Life is full of signs. The trick is to know how to read them."
• “Life too is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward.”
• “Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted”
• “We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.”
• “Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals”
• “Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?"....I met his gaze and I did not blink. "Words of comfort.”