The Book Thief

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY

The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.


When Death has a story to tell, you listen.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

“The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times

“Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today

DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

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Published Sep 11, 2007

608 pages

Average rating: 8.56

1,321 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say *The Book Thief* is a beautifully written, emotionally gripping story set in Nazi Germany that highlights the power of words and humanity ...

MrsCarlson21
Apr 29, 2025
8/10 stars
Amazingly written. A book I could read over and over again.
KikiStoneCreek
Jun 03, 2023
4/10 stars
I was quite bored with this book so it will be interesting to see how they made it into a movie.
Islandgirl649
Dec 11, 2025
10/10 stars
Absolutely beautiful and insightful. This was a fascinating read
Allison Nelson
Dec 10, 2025
10/10 stars
LOVED IT! This is such a classic book with so many lives intertwined during the worst of times in Germany; Hitler's reign. The book is narrated by Death, which is interesting in itself. The story mainly follows a little girl named Liesel, who is so easy to fall in love with. She meets so many amazing characters during the hardest times of her life, I think I loved every single one. It's not a book that has a "happy" ending although some might say it does, but I thought it was true and real and an amazing story! I added this to my "top of the heap" shelf - I loved it so much!

And a word about the writing style - it was so unique and the story was so rich with many characters' developments so eloquently told. I recommend fully!
Tiffany X
Dec 05, 2025
8/10 stars
A slow burn this one is. I struggled through most of this book but kept at it due to the beautiful poetic sentences and the riveting narrator's voice on Audible. The book reads almost like a memoir with a lot of details of day-to-day unimportant life events that it felt like nothing was really happening. It took me until around Chapter 38 to completely commit to hearing the book until the end. It was worth it.

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