The Best Books I Read in 2008

2008 was a bumper year for reading. I read so much great stuff! None of my top three could overtake each other to reach the number one slot, as I love them all equally but for entirely different reasons. Therefore, we shall proceed alphabetically by author. I won’t say too much about each title; these books speak for themselves!


Little Brother by Cory Doctorow


Exciting, inspiring, and entirely of its time. Though still highly relevant, I am glad I read this in late summer, before the economy usurped terrorism as the fear that dominates the news.


The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos


Refreshingly odd, somewhat disturbing, thought provoking (perhaps every family has some sort of curse), not too long or too short. Fabulous!


The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


This book made a huge impression on me, and I wrote about it here. Such beauty!


I must also mention The Best First Draft I Read in 2008: Natalie L. Sin's NaNoWriMo novel, a horror thriller titled Bucky’s Luck. Great premise, crisp writing, sharp dialogue, gruesome murders, strong characters, humour. If only my first drafts were as good as this! :)

The Book Thief

“... an extraordinary novel about the redemptive power of words and reading.”


Last night I finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Without doubt, it is one of the best novels I’ve read in my life -- yet I almost passed it by. For three reasons:

It is a whopping 584 pages.

It is set in Nazi Germany during WW2. And the Nazi regime is a subject I can barely stomach. The persecution and slaughter of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Poles...

It is narrated by Death, and the atmosphere is grey and gloomy right from start -- when a ten-year-old girl named Liesel Meminger witnesses the death of her little brother on a freezing cold train.

But it is brilliantly told and BEAUTIFULLY written. And even though it is such a fat book, I slowed down, savouring it more and more.

I prefer a linear narrative, not to know what will happen in the story until reaching that point. But in the case of The Book Thief, I think the use of foreshadowing was essential. Without it, some of the blows might have been too hard.

Even so, it was difficult to read through my tears during a couple of the final chapters.

And I don’t want to ruin the story (it is a great story, with an element of consoling humour), but by the time Liesel Meminger is fourteen, she has experienced more horror and loss than most of us will see in a lifetime.

A truly unforgettable book. I am astonished at what Markus Zusak achieved...



And reminded of a real-life story:

The elderly father of one of my friends was a teenager in Poland during WW2. The Nazis murdered his whole family; his mother and one of his brothers were shot right in front of him. (I don’t know the reason he was spared.) He had no one and nowhere to go, so he started walking. Somewhere along the way he found a gun -- and decided to keep on walking. He reached England a few months before the end of the War, by which time he was seventeen-years-old.

He got a job in the building trade. He worked hard and eventually built his own successful business.

It wasn’t until he retired that he began to have terrible nightmares and to struggle to cope with his past.

War is never over.