World Book Night: Success!

I just had the opportunity to give away 20 copies of one of my favorite books, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The occasion? World Book Night, a celebration of reading where 500,000 books will be given away in the United States. The books were provided by volunteer printers making special editions of thirty different books. World Book Night is also being held in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A complete list of books can be found here.

I chose to give away The Book Thief because it was one of the most moving books I had ever read. Markus Zusak has a unique ability to reach directly into my heartstrings and toy with them until they are frayed and tormented and yet purified in the process. The Book Thief was unique, bizarre, heartrending and beautiful, and I want other people to have the chance to experience the same emotions I experienced with them.

I didn't give the books away in any particularly special way. I walked through my neighborhood (which is a huge housing complex with thousands of residents) with my little sister (too many books to carry by myself!). When I saw people, I asked them if they wanted a book. Everyone I talked to said yes. I also went through the laundry building and left copies of the books in the empty laundry baskets perched on top of dryers. Finally, with my last remaining books, I made a few doorstep drops. I know that for me to open my door and discover a new, beautiful book would be like Christmas morning.

World Book Night was an amazing experience, and I am looking forward to participating next year. Next year I will be in Los Angeles and hopefully working in a hospital (if all my dreams come true, on a cancer floor), so I am already full of plans for next year. I hope all of you that participated in World Book Night had positive experiences, that those of you who didn't are planning on next year, and that some of you received books of your own. Happy World Book Night!

YA Friday: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Title: I am the Messenger
Author: Markus Zusak
Genre: YA
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2005
Source: Graduation gift from the hubs
Read for: The awesomeness

Ed Kennedy is a loser. He drives a cab (illegally), pines for a girl who has gone with just about every guy in town except for him, lives in a shack with a dog that drinks coffee and smells like death itself, and spends all his free time playing cards, drinking, and reading. His mom can't stand him. He doesn't have a car. However, after accidentally stopping a bank robbery, he begins receiving cards in his mailbox, directing him to strange tasks. Some are simple, like buying an ice cream for a harried mother. Others are more complicated. As the messages and lessons intensify, Ed is left wondering who is sending him these messages, and what their motivation is.

I got this book the night I heard Markus Zusak speak and later found myself in the library at 1:00 AM with it in my hands, one of the last volumes that he signed. (I was going to take a picture of the title page, but I'm at school and then going out of town for the week, so... oh well). It already held a special place in my heart, just because of the circumstances that led me to owning it. However, it hovered on the TBR for months, the way books I've purchased tend to hover, until my husband (who read it shortly after we purchased it) asked me in exasperation, "Were you going to read that book I bought for you?" Properly chastised, I read it as soon as possible and was so grateful that I did.

Markus Zusak's writing style is decidedly strange. He is disjointed. He likes to write paragraphs with only one five word sentence. This has the potential to be annoying, except for the fact that he speaks exactly the same way, so it felt very genuine to me. He walks a thin line between being overly quirky and being refreshingly unique, but for me, his writing falls on the side of brilliant and impactful (which blogger informs me is not a word, but which I wish to use anyway) every time. His staccato sentences drive each point until they are firmly imprinted in my brain, until I am registering Ed's feelings as if they are his own.

This story is just as unique as Zusak's writing style. The situations and the steps Ed takes to fix them are not cliches, but they ring true to the human experience all the same. It is because of their variability and uniqueness that they spoke to me - because they felt so real. I loved the way the cards became more and more difficult for Ed to decipher, beginning with simple addresses and progressing to riddles that take some innovation to solve (the library scene? Priceless).

The other Zusak book I have read, The Book Thief, was heavy with emotion, and I am the Messenger is dripping with it as well. You can't have a book about making a difference in people's lives without giving it a hearty dose of human feeling. I think this is part of the allure of Zusak's writing as well - there is so much feeling present. It is palpable through the pages. I am the Messenger brought me tears more than once, and it was usually in a public area. It left me desperate for more when the train pulled into the hospital and I had to get off and start my day. It engaged me wholly - my heart was speeding up with Ed's, my eyes were filling when he witnessed something inspiring or heart-breaking.

More than the emotion, more than the unique story or the unique writing style, what I loved most of all was Ed's growth, when he came into the knowledge that by improving others' lives, he was shaping and saving his own. I think that is one of the most well-known secrets to happiness, and yet it is so hard to implement for some reason that I think very few people are ever truly successful. Ed was transformed from a nice, directionless kid with a big heart to a strong and passionate man with a knowledge of his capacity for good. I was inspired by this book - it made me want to make changes in my own life, to grow into the kind of person Ed starts to become and to bring the joy to people's lives that he brings. As Ed says in the final pages of the book, "I am the message." And he is - he is the message that happiness comes from love, not personal achievement or ambition.

This is a book worth reading, regardless of whether you normally have YA on your shelves.

5 stars

Warnings: Violence (beatings, mostly), innuendo, language (a fairly large amount, but no F-bombs)

Meeting Markus Zusak - A Story in Two Parts

Photo Credit: Marie Teemant

Part I: Treats of a Fantastic Keynote Address, in which I learned much about writing and Mr. Zusak

Actually, he requested that we call him Markus. But I digress.

My husband arrived at the Provo City Library about twenty minutes before we were required to be in our seats and were only able to get a seat in the back row, which demonstrates the anticipation Provo Library-goers had for this event. The second Markus came in, the room erupted into cheers and whistles, quite possibly because he is young and has an Australian accent. I note this only as an observer, of course - I have eyes only for The Husband. ;)

Markus immediately drew us as an audience in with his humility and personality. He seemed so overwhelmed at the amount of people there and the love they had for him. He spoke to us comfortably, as if we were friends he had known his entire life. He told us about the "bleak times" of his early writing career, including giving a reading where no one was in attendance but the librarian (she made him read to her), and stalking a bookstore just to see his first book on the shelves. He also told his "absolute favorite" story, which is recounted in a video that I'll embed at the bottom of this post (thanks Suey Says for taking the video!). What impressed me most is that he told this hilarious personal story, and then he taught us all, explaining to us how to be a good writer by a) mining your own life for material, b) make things realistic with small intimate details that show you know it, c) engage your audience with original, unexpected twists, and d) tell it over and over again (aka rewrite it over and over again). He said the first 80 pages of The Book Thief were rewritten 150-200 times.

I think the most valuable thing to me was his advice to writers. He reiterated over and over again that he was not extremely intelligent and that he did not have a superior imagination. Instead, he knew where to find the good stories. He took stories from his parents' childhoods in World War II to tell some of the most poignant stories in The Book Thief. He mentioned how in all his books, the more he wrote, the more problems he found, and that the process of writing is solving those problems (and creating new ones in the process). This is quite comforting to me, as I've been working on my book for about two weeks and I'm already up to my neck in problems to be solved! I loved his description of his struggle with Death as the narrator for The Book Thief. He said at the beginning, death was very creepy and macabre, and it made the story dark. He wrote the following sentence in the early drafts of The Book Thief: "This is a story about a young girl. Do you like young girls? I do." Yes, that sentence had to go. But it was very funny to hear him recall it. He also mentioned that he gave up on Death as the narrator for a short time and tried to write it from Liesl's point of view, but that she was "the most Australian sounding girl ever to be in Nazi Germany."

He said to be a writer, it must be your top priority. You have to be willing to give your soul to it and fail and fail and fail. He said you can consider yourself a writer when you know that even if this story will never ever be published, you still have to tell it.

He also read a short bit from the chapter "Confessions" in the book. I almost started crying, and I think he did too. The Book Thief is a very powerful story, and I think it was even more powerful hearing it in the voice of its creator.

The speech was a great experience, and afterward, we all knew there would be a book signing. Little did we know it was to be a book signing marathon spanning about 6 and a half hours.

Part II: Treats of a bizarre and occasionally delinquent adventure, which ended with a book signing

Because my husband and I arrived late (aka 30 minutes early, as opposed to two hours), we were in one of the last signing groups. I expected the wait to be about two hours. My husband, who is very impatient with lines, waiting, and sitting around doing nothing, went to his old roommate's apartment, which was just around the corner, while I settled in with my Lord of the Rings. After about an hour and a half (it was about 8:30), with no end in sight, I realized that I was not going to get through the line and have time to go to dinner with my husband, so I called him and we went out to dinner.

We then came back to the Provo Library, thinking if people were still there maybe we could catch the tail-end of the book signing before our movie at 10:15. People were still there, in full force. We waited until 10:00 and still there were four groups before ours. A librarian came into the auditorium and told us that once people got in line, it was still about an hour and a half wait. We shrugged our shoulders and decided to just go to the movie, since we had already bought tickets.

The movie ended at about 12:30. My husband suggested that we drive back to the library. I shook my head, thinking there was no way anyone would still be there, but I was wrong. As we drove by, we saw a light in the upper room with crowds of people. The signing was still going. We parked and tried to enter, but the door was locked. My husband, who is a very stubborn man, started knocking on the door. I said, "Honey, stop, no one can hear us," but a disgruntled security officer came to the door and said sternly, "We're closed." My husband then told him we were there for a book signing and held up the ticket, and the officer reluctantly let us in. Hooray, we broke into the Provo Library after midnight!

We still waited another forty-five minutes before our books were signed. In that time, someone fainted because they were hypoglycemic. It was very dramatic. Mr. Zusak looked exhausted, but still had a smile on his face and was very kind. I don't really remember what we said to each other, but it wasn't much, because I don't usually function after 10:30 pm, and he had been writing in books for 6 hours straight and was probably jetlagged as well. However, it definitely made the night very memorable. I am full of respect for this author, who was so giving to his fans and so humble despite his success. I was telling my friend Emily, who also came to the event, that I was excited that I hadn't read all his books just because it will be so great to experience them after meeting the author. Yes, we do look tired, don't we?

For your viewing pleasure, Suey Says compiled a great video with some of Markus's stories and his reading from The Book Thief.


Also, check out my review of The Book Thief.
And the awesomeness that is the Provo City Library.
And Utah bloggers - many of them also had a recap of this author event!

Um, time for bed. Good night.

The Last of the Mohicans

Before doing anything else, please proceed to the bottom of this post, press "play," and listen to this awesome music while you read.

The Last of the Mohicans is a story I grew up with. My dad loved the movie, and would often play the soundtrack in the evenings while I would run around with my little sister pretending we were Indians dancing around the fire. Later, when I was an angsty teenager, I would walk for hours in the woods behind our cabin, listening to the soundtrack and being angsty. (Ok, I was also a weird teenager). I will also confess and say that The Last of the Mohicans was the first (and practically only) R-rated movie I ever saw. (Although I heard that the rating was changed to PG-13? I don't know if that is actually true. And I have repented - I just ordered the movie from clean play so that I can enjoy it again without feeling guilty. Anyway...)

Because this movie was such a classic in my hunting, outdoorsy family, I couldn't wait for the day when I could read the book. When I was in elementary school (I am remembering my 3rd grade classroom, so I think it was at that time) I discovered a Great Illustrated Classics version of The Last of the Mohicans in my teacher's bookshelf. I pretty much existed on Great Illustrated Classics in elementary school. I remember when the teacher took a bunch of my accelerated reader points away when she found out I was reading the simplified version instead of the original. Anyway, reading the story absolutely inspired me. I had never read a story with so much passion, desperation for survival, or tragedy. I couldn't wait for the day when I was smart enough to read the "grown up" version.

So, (after all that introduction) I have finally read the grown up version. I had mixed feelings about it. The story is still what captivated me over ten years ago. Once I reached the end, I still was completely jarred, even though I knew what was coming. (Brief aside: The Book Thief puts this perfectly: "Of course, I'm being rude. I'm spoiling the ending [...] I don't have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me" (243). Exactly. This is why I reread books. End of brief aside) Often, the book was witty, descriptive, and moving.

Occasionally, the language was thick and hard to understand. I don't think this is a reflection on James Fenimore Cooper. It is a reflection on the 199 year gap between our birthdays. Even though I waited until I was "grown up" to read this book, it was still very hard. I will confess I used Cliff Notes to help me understand a few things (in particular, which tribe was which. The book has many different appellations for each tribe, and there are also many different alliances and betrayals between the tribes. You might want to draw a map). There were some important pieces of information that were unclear to me just from reading the book. If you read this, I would recommend getting a version with footnotes.

However, with all that said, you will admire the courage and resolution of Cora. You will admire the strength and untamed beauty of Uncas. You will appreciate the wisdom and roughness of Hawkeye, fall in love with Duncan and Alice, laugh at David Gamut. You will hate Le Renard Subtil. This book is most engaging due to its full characters and the intense experience they have in the wilderness of a newborn country.

The story is 5 out of 5 stars, hands down. The book at first I was thinking of about 3.5 stars, but after I read the Cliff Notes and understood it a bit better, I wanted to elevate it to 5 stars as well. Just bear in mind that it is difficult and don't be ashamed to resort to a little extra help to understand it.



Isn't the music amazing?

The Book Thief

This book surprised me.

I had heard of it from several people, but I didn't know anything about it except that it was narrated by Death. I wasn't sure what to think of that. And the first few pages, I wasn't sure how I liked "Death"'s voice. It seemed flippant, immature even. But after those first uncertain pages, I was hooked, much like Death was hooked, on the Book Thief's life. And once I got used to Death, I liked him - liked the stark, simple, and unforgivingly honest images he used to describe his observations and actions at the margins between life and death.

This story is about a German girl in World War II. But it isn't quite that simple. Yes, you get the Hitler Youth uniforms and the harrowing descriptions of the treatment of the Jews. You get the bomb raids and the constant death and the militant, robotic youth. But you also get German children throwing bread to the Jews as they march. You get a glimpse of the privations the Germans went through, from coffee to their family members (all in the name of serving the Fuhrer, of course). And of course, you get book stealing. I'll let you read the book to find out how that comes into play.

So back to my love-hate relationship with Death's voice. One thing I quickly grew to love about this book was the way Death inserts little anecdotes and facts into the text. Example: He is describing a situation with the main character, Liesel, and a boy she meets, and suddenly this little announcement is inserted into the text:

THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN
A BOY WHO HATES YOU
A boy who loves you.

It is kind of trendy to have "abstractness" in books, I have been noticing - random things like those little anecdotal inserts, or weird drawings, or a strange point of view (like Death narrating the story). But in this book it wasn't tacky - it worked.

I loved the way Death gave the images in perfect detail but left you to feel the emotions of them. For example: "Her mouth jittered. Her cold arms were folded. Tears were frozen to the book thief's face" (pg. 8). Or (a happier image) "In the basement, when she wrote about her life, Liesel vowed that she would never drink champagne again, for it would never taste as good as it did on that warm afternoon in July" (357).

Death also gave longer, more developed images that I couldn't get out of my mind - a woman sleeping, bent over an accordion. A boy painting himself black and reenacting an Olympic race. A fistfighter defeating Hitler in an imagined fighting match, only to have Hitler call the audience back to fight him, yelling, "Can you see that this enemy has found its ways - its despicable ways - through our armor, and that clearly, I cannot stand up here alone and fight him? [...] Will you climb in here so that we can defeat this enemy together?" (254). That held my attention more than any translation of Hitler's words ever could. Wasn't that really what gave him his power - his words, his ability to convince people that not only was he smart, but he was morally correct? That imagined scene brought me closer to that than any history book ever could.

This book is raw. It is different. It will pull you in and not let you forget its characters. You may find yourself mentally arguing with Death sometimes. But I think you will end up enjoying his story, even if he bugs you at the beginning. 5 out of 5 stars. Buy this book. Highlight it, think about it, loan it to your friends, and read it again.