Here is a small fact: you are going to die.

A reassuring announcement: Please, be calm, despite that previous threat. I am all bluster – I’m not violent. I’m not malicious. I’m a result.

The Book Thief was written by Markus Zusak and was first published in 2005. Since then it has reached the rank of best seller in many countries, won a panoply of awards and enjoys the support of many readers, writers and critics. I bought it in Zurich a couple of years ago because luck, destiny or whatever your personal superstitions allow you to call such things, made it to be the only one in English in that book store. Ever since then I can’t shake the feeling that I didn’t choose the book, but on the contrary, it chose me.

Set in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the years preceding it, the book follows the footsteps of Liesel Meminger, the book thief, a young girl that loses her communist mother to the concentration camps and her younger brother in the claws of death. She is then adopted by the Hubermanns, a family living close to Munich and here is where the whole story unravels itself into a brilliant collection of human emotions such as compassion, friendship and love, all knitted together with the fears and horrors of the war and with the struggles of simple man against society.

The narrator of the entire tale is Death itself and I simply can’t think of a better one for it. Leave all of your scythe, dark hooded, scheming character prejudices behind when opening the covers of The Book Thief, because I can guarantee that after reading it you will hardly be able to think of a better story teller, of a more compassionate and fair one, of a more humane one than Death. And this is just one of the many wonderful surprises the book offers in its literary generosity of unprecedented simplicity and beauty. I could tell you of countless others, but I fear I can not find the words that would do justice to Markus Zusak’s talent. So I can only hope that all the above is enough to convince you that The Book Thief is a not something you wish to overlook.

Recently the book has been advertised as being suited for young adults, but I think that’s a mistake. That’s because although the flow of events that hold the book together may be appealing to teenagers and although the colors in which some of characters are painted offer a strong, joyful contrast with the dark-grey Jewish Holocaust canvas that stands as background, one must be equipped with a full arsenal of human emotions in order to fully enjoy all that The Book Thief has to offer. So open both your mind and soul and be prepared to embrace one of the most beautiful and exhilarating stories ever written.