Two bestsellers

The Book Thief

Yes, it's definitely a bestseller and I'm always sceptical towards bestsellers.
It's not only a bestseller, it's also about World War II, the Holocaust, Nazi Germany....a historical novel, not my preferred genre and supposed to be sad.

But, as so often, my daughter Anna urged me to read it. And, also as so often, she was right.

This is a wonderful book about books, about friendship, about love, about life and death.

There have been written millions if not billions of reviews about it all over the world. Can I say something new about it? Probably not.

It took me in immediatly. It made me feel all sorts of emotions. It was sweet, funny, sad, hopefully and devastating. Just as Death describes the human nature:
"I wanted to ask her, how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words so damning and brilliant."

Ok, to love this book you must love one-word-sentences (if they are well-placed) and strange metaphors and it must not disturb you to be interrupted by the narrators voice, you must accept to know some things before the story reaches there.

As a German I have a point of critique: I've never met anybody who used the word "Saumensch".


Now I'm looking forward to this one:

I'm so glad to have found it for only 1,99 €

Here's what Ted Dekker wrote about it:

AD 30 is my best selling and best reviewed novel in years, so some might wonder why I would do an abridgment. Actually, it was extremely difficult and took Erin Healy (my life-long editor) and me a full month to do, but the result is amazing. It carefully eases back on historical details that don’t affect the story while leaving the characters, the full plot and story entirely intact. The last half of the novel is virtually unchanged and the nail-biting climax completely untouched. In some ways, it’s better than the full length version, depending on how much detail you like.

And it's still 432 pages long!

Yes it's historical, and it is a bestseller - but it's a Dekker, and I love his writing!