Book Thief

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak is a book that takes place towards the end of the Second World War. The main character, Leisel has experience a lot of trama with her family and now she has lost her brother, her mother has run off, and she is now fostered in a small down outside Berlin. She is not very educated and does not know how to read, but she stole her first book, The Grave Digger's Handbook from the graveyard of her brother. She faces many hardships as a foster child and additionally she learns to read and write. After, she learns this, she begins to have a significance in books. I find this book very interesting because it is narrated by death. In the end, she falls in love with a boy named Max who is eventually taken away to a concentration camp.

Tell Me What You See - Zvoran Drvenkar (semi-spoilers)

"Tell Me What You See" by Zoran Drvenkar is a book that I recently began and have yet to finish it. Zoran Drvenkar is a German writer, and many have read this book, therefore I was recommended to read it by a friend. I must say that the only disappointment to this book is the fact that it was originally written in German and then translated. My first copy was a complete mess and some sentences were far too long when it was easier to make the whole thing in shorter sentences.

I must say that at the beginning it is a sad story of a girl, Alissa and her best friend that are visiting the grave for the yearly anniversary of her father's passing. Her father passed away on Christmas day, and so Alissa and her best friend chose to make it a tradition to visit Alissa's father's grave every year. It begins usually with the thoughts of the girl being displayed and a description of the events that passed and that will pass.

At night, and in the snow, Alissa is pushing away the powdery, cold snow off the gravestones to find her father's as she gets lost, and can no longer find the exact location.

Alissa falls into a subterranean crypt, where in a black room, she stumbles upon a little boy's casket. Alissa chooses to open the casket of the boy, where she finds that there is a purple vine growing out of the boy. The roots of the vine are perfectly caught to the boy's heart.
Alissa then decides to remove the flower from the boy's heart, where she takes it and keeps it for herself.

Alissa manages to crawl out of the freezing hole and return home safely, where she goes back in her bed, the girl then falls asleep with no worries as the plant remains in her jacket pocket. (From here you can begin to find that there is something suspicious about the flower and that something will most definitely go wrong as it has been removed from the heart of a dead child).

The author then introduces the supernatural into this, implying that the dead begin to talk to Alissa, explaining to her that the plant allows her to hear the dead, and listen to their worries, hates and angers. Yet, even if the author is saying something as simple as "the dead are beginning to talk to her, she can hear all their screams and all their shouts of anger at misfortunes" he makes it sound terrifying, and it actually makes your skin crawl from time to time.

I am only halfway through the book and I most definitely cannot read it at night because of the creative descriptions that make it seem very realistic, and you begin to get goosebumps as Alissa's hallucinations begin to take over her mind, causing your own imagination to fly away into darker corners.

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Atonement by Ian McEwan is a book that everyone must read at some point in their life. A love story that is set in the 1930's; where the imagination of a young girl that was obsessed with her own different perception of reality changes their lives. Ian McEwan's way of writing is very unique, it has its own individual rhythm that makes it very easy to read, but also a pleasure to read due to the rich descriptions of the surroundings and emotions of the characters are going through.

Set in the middle of summer 1937, the entire book is a mesmerising blur of color, emotions, personal opinions and viewpoints, enrapturing stories and a grand outrage that is the end of the first part of the book.

The beginning of the book is a little slow, filled with descriptions that set the mood, and make the reader imagine and actually walk through the setting along with the characters and the author. Although it starts off slow, the pace begins to quicken, and we are introduced into the childish and innocent imagination of Briony Tallis, a young girl of twelve that loves writing and recently finished writing her first play, "The Trials of Arabella". Briony's thoughts are organised in a confusing way, yet you can see that the author has created her in the way that a girl her age should be thinking and acting. Briony believes herself to be far more mature than all the children her age. As a reader you get the sense that Briony is trying to fill in the shoes of an adult; trying to fill it with un-lived experiences, stories and thoughts. She portrays herself as the hero and main character of her story, even though she lets herself be affected by all the things happening around her.

After being introduced to the youngest Tallis, we move to Cecilia Tallis, an educated young woman that studies in Cambridge and believes that she is completely responsible to keeping her family together; being the second mother-figure in the family while her mother is tending to one of her famous migraines that causes the mother to be bed-ridden for the day till she recovers. Cecilia is the complete opposite of young and organised Briony that organises her dolls in perfect order; Cecilia is a girl that, typical to her age, chooses to have her head in the clouds, respectively to her it is a constant cloud of smoke surrounding her from her ever present cigarettes. Cecilia is excited, like Briony for the very long awaited return of their brother to the wonderful Tallis home.

The arrival of the cousins of a family that has violently fallen apart starts the chain of events that will later lead to other worse things. The cousins are a self-centered bunch of kids, three kids, twin boys and a girl that finds herself the mandatory centre of attention almost constantly. The cousins are quite annoying, McEwan describes them in such an irritating way that you cannot help beginning to get annoyed with their actions throughout the chapters.

Later we return to Briony who is storming her authority upon the cousins, trying to organise them in such a way that they will be prepared for the play that Briony wrote for that specific night, the return of her brother to the home. Briony wanted to be recognised as the most impressive playwright and writer throughout the entire England, and the first to appreciate her work had to be her brother.

While this is happening, Cecilia is trying to take a bunch of wild flowers back to the house and arrange them in a not-so-orderly fashion in the room of Mr. Marshall that is joining the family along with her brother. Cecilia eventually wanders off with the a vase that has sentimental value to the father, all the while, she is thinking of Robbie that is outside in the garden, rolling a cigarette.

Here, the chain of events that crack the whip are begun. Cecilia and Robbie begin to connect, even though the event that passed is quite aggressive in the point of view of Cecilia, Robbie leaves with a completely different opinion.

I will cease to spoil the rest of the story, however, after the horrible events that happen at the Tallis Home, Robbie is arrested and he decides that instead of rotting in a jail he will go fight for Britain in the Second World War that has violently begun. We are transported to the mind of a man that once was very perfectly kept, his mind was tidy in a way that the reader could sift through it simply and predictably. Yet, as we are now deep in Robbie Turner's mind, we find that he honestly has no other reason to be living and fighting than Cecilia. He pushes himself, even if he is wounded, through the fields of craters, he pushes himself to live through what is going on around him, he will himself to reach Dunkirk and return to his beloved Cecilia. What causes the reader to feel horrible and begin hating a specific character more is when Robbie begins to share his violent feelings with the reader, when he begins to truly open up and display his feelings.


The book is absolutely amazing, and moving. I had not considered it important to read it, because the movies are quite cheesy in a cinematic way, and romances have never been of great interest to me. But this book truly caught my attention in a unique way, a way where you could ignore the way the romance was proceeding, but how the chain of events make you sigh at the end of the book, and you lose everything that you believed at the beginning of the story, you begin to see the crime through the criminal's eyes and you experience the regret that crosses through the characters. The ending, of course leaves quite the impression on the reader

Freedom of Imagination

In the past weeks I have finish a number of truly great book some of them being: Sea Wolf, SteppenWolf, Life of an Unknown Man (which was sublime!), Venture to the Interior ( Laurens Van der Post), Out of Africa, Shadows on the Grass and Senior Vivo and the Cacao Lord ( truly excruciating!!). I was very happy with the encounter of these books, and have just recently picked up quite a few new ones including: Shadow of the Sun, Birds without Wings ( great book so far ), Ishmael (a recommendation of a friends ... not too found of it yet), and lastly Winds, Sand and Stars (of the author of Le Petite Prince).
This term, I have been reading more than ever, I guess it is because sometimes my thoughts just get too much, and books allow me not to think about them, as frankly, they do not matter. All that matters is what is said in the book. There is no why or how in the world of books, it just happens, and that is what is simply so amazing; the freedom of imagination!

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

This is the story of two young boys in Venice, Prosper and Bo, that leave their cruel aunt ad uncle to go and live in the small alleyways of Venice. They meet a group of young children, such as them, that is hiding from the police. They strike an unusual friendship, but it is not all fun and games. There is their leader, the Thief Lord. However, he has a very dark secret which takes Prosper and Bo on an unforgettable journey into the forgotten past.
I really enjoyed reading this book, because I felt that it was a very interesting and captivating book. It shows us Venice, which is a place I would love to visit.

The City of Thieves by David Benioff

This is a very passionate book about a young Jewish man who is living in Russia during the war who are caught stealing from a dead german. He is arrested and given a chance to save himself. He is in the company of Kolya, a young scholar. They are given the task of finding a dozen eggs for te General's daughter's wedding. This is an impossible task because they are rationing all  the food.
This book is a very intense book which I greatly enjoyed reading. It was very gripping, I could hardly put it down. 

The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway

I have just finished reading a gripping novel which is set in Paris during the 1st World War, 1926. It is written by the American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of British and American expatriates. They spend their time travelling from paris to Pamplona to attend the Festival of San Fermin to watch the bullfights and have a taste of the cultural event;  explosion of feast, party and alcohol through the streets. 

The protagonist of this novel, an impotent young man - Jake Barnes - falls in love with a divorced woman - Lady Brett Ashley. This is the surface of the novel. Hemingway expresses particular themes of love, death and nature in this interesting novel.

I recommend this book to those of you who enjoy reading impersonal literature and love stories.