The Book Thief

Pre-script : I pick my books from random sources. It could be some unknown twitter feed, or friends of friends of friends reco, or simply this. Its the risk in trying out any genre that appeals to me. Friends normally recommend what they think I might like. But picking your sources from anywhere else, is a thrill ;)I don't feel hungry anymore. Anything I read for the coming few days will seem pointless. Its ok to love a book so much, I think. [added after I finished the book. I have felt a plethora of emotions over the last 4 days and what I feel now is not for words to describe. Its mine to feel.]After a long time (last time was when I read the Foundation series by Asimov) I sat with my notepad, and noted down obscure words (mostly german) and random quotes. :DI cannot come to decide though, why I liked the book (I am still a 100 pages far from the finish line). But the thing about good books, or at least the books you fall in love with is, you love them in first few pages. The connect is not easier to define/find. May be its the world war II, Nazi germany setting or the child protagonist or death being the narrator or its stark wit despite the grimness or such beautiful use of the German language. Its all and something more actually. Voices of holocaust brought me closer to German (among yiddish, russian, spanish) as a language and Germany as a country [weird thought inside my head- I would like to be born in Germany in some next life. And I guess this purely arises from the conflicts]. The people it exposed me to though were very much real, their plight disturbed me. It was a depressing experience, if the takeaway of trying to learn a new language is spared. Now death being the narrator takes the book to a different level. It makes it so much more subtle. Of course, you might argue, that how can death be subtle, even as a narrator. Believe me, it is so witty that it is subtle. This must also give you the cue that you must read the book![I am strange with things I like, I rally for them till one gets bored :-/]Note: the post might get unbearably long from here. The book reco has *conveniently* stopped now.And as the book thief deals with books, lots of them, I feel obligated to write my own journey of books-reading. For posterity if nothing else.It started with long, really hot summers at home with no outings planned and no outdoor stuff allowed during the day. Also owing to no cable and thus less tv. Must have been standard 3 or 4. The only place to rescue from such boring summers in childhood was the (kids') library near my house. Over the entire summer I read ALL the books in that library. Around 200. Sarla Mavashi, the librarian was extremely generous with me (from what I remember). The last book off that library's shelf was a version of Ramayana in prakrit hindi. Did not understand a thing. But the pictures were good, so worked :DThere was also a comics reading era. Don't remember if it was before this stint or after. Every week during the entire summer vacation, brother would go with his friends to this comics library and get 2 comics. Of course they would be bartered with other neighboring kids, so we would end up reading 4-5 comics in a week. This mainly included spiderman, nagraj, dhruv and other such. Chacha chowdhary's presence was sporadic in the list, depending on how much I whined. Sibling pyaar or rivalry, there was only one subscription in the household (I guess aai-baba believed in sharing) and since we hated going together (my version: bro never took me with him :D) and in those rare cases when baba took us, would we be the perfect, loving siblings granting each other one comics of choice each.Well, sadly we moved away from these libraries after std 4 and libraries vanished from my life. The reading that happened over the school year would be, Reader's digest, competition success review, chandoba, tinkle, sportsstar etc. But every vacation I would religiously take out all the story books at home and read them. So treasure island, sherlock holmes and a few other children's classics are etched in my mind. Also, whatever marathi books from aai's collection which aai thought were ok enough for my sensibilities came my way (PuLa, Ranjit Desai et al). Around this time the idea to write a book on my own, first took shape. Thankfully it did not last long :DSo over my 3rd summer at the new place, I found some book lovers and keepers. After initial barters, it was found out that I owned comparatively less number of books. So once those were over, the other kids (who were smarter for 12 year olds) started a library with a 20 Rs. deposit and 5 Rs. per month fee. Well, as long as I got to lay my hands on the Arabian nights book which I was craving for the entire summer, I did not mind. Plus, since cycle expenses were equivalent to nil during summer, I did not mind shelling out my own money. So one way or the other I could not get rid of books, until I reached a state when studies and boards took precedence over every other activity.After a 2 year drought which included 10th standard exams, I was introduced to mills and boons, sidney sheldon, geoffery archer, mary higgins clark, john grisham, james hadley chase. Mills and boons lasted for 2 books, whereas sheldon and grisham won my coveted readership. I also happened to read My experiments with truth (and Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande - WEIRD), which kind of changed my opinions about a lot of things, including the person who wrote it.Move to COEP circa 2002-2006, and harry potter, ayn rand, calvin and hobbes, few marathi books captured my attention. I remember throwing off my Preparatory Leave (PL) over atlas shrugged and trying to figure it out. College done, but I am still not done with the figuring out. Talk of being slow.Well, after that the books which I distinctly remember leaving an impact on me, are To kill a mockingbird (Harper Lee) and Eagle in the sky (Wilbur Smith), which I happened to read in 2007. (whoa! I have a pretty good memory :D) Books have somehow been a constant in this life. With periodic slumbers, the reading habit has more or less been there. And as my horizons are expanding and so is my information crunching ability, I guess this vice will stick with me for the rest of this life. :)~nightflier