Every so often, a book comes along that takes the nation by storm. Not just within its generic audience, but throughout all subsets of readers: the literary, the YA crowd, those who enjoy popular fiction, and kids. Of course, Harry Potter is the default example of this sort of trend, but I tend to discredit that a bit considering how many now-adult readers came of age with the series. The best recent example I can think of is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, though I know that tends to select for older readers.
One such book to achieve this phenomenon situates itself chronologically between the other two titles I listed, and is, perhaps, more representative of a jack-of-all-trades piece of literature. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, originally published in 2006, is generally classified as a young adult novel, though you wouldn’t know it based on the scores of adults who claim to have read the tome. A World War II narrative with a twist, The Book Thief has been taught at high schools throughout the US, translated into over 40 languages, and still remains in the top ten of many bestseller lists to this day. Though it may slant toward a younger audience, there is no denying that Zusak’s work has amassed a following beyond even his own expectations. Though it fails to fully realize the darkness of its own setting, The Book Thief makes for a gripping WWII narrative that speaks to our humanity in a time period where everyone’s chief concern was his own mortality. Continue reading
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