The Book Thief – Discussion 1/3

We here at Doing Dewey are very anti-spoiler but for read-a-longs, there’s really no way to avoid them. So, if you haven’t read the first three parts of The Book Thief which are being discussed in the It’s All About Books read-a-long, this post is going to be COMPLETELY SPOILERY. You have been warned.

This read-a-long for The Book Thief is one of the first read-a-longs I’ve done, so first I’m going to tell you a bit about how I’m liking it. Then I’ll answer some of the discussion questions from our host, Suey. I don’t like to be reading multiple books at one time, so I was surprised at how easy it was to read this between two other books. It was very hard to stop reading because I was enjoying this book a lot, but it’s worth it to me to get to discuss the book with other bloggers. I can’t wait for the twitter chat tomorrow!

Discussion Questions

1. What’s your first impression of Death as a character/narrator?

Bookends About 1Q84

Title: 1Q84
Author: Haruki Murakami
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: Although the book was long and the ending was abrupt, I loved the writing and can’t wait to read more books by Murakami.

This book was so long and so strange that I’m not even sure where to start telling you what it was about, but I’ll do my best. The story involves two main characters and we alternate between their view points. Aomame is an assassin and Tengo is a writer. As the story progresses, they get pulled closer and closer together by events that initially seemed unrelated but which turn out to have a deep connection. The book involves questions of destiny and pre-determination, parallel worlds and some surprising magical elements.