The best historical fiction I ever read

I have yet to meet an avid reader who’s not excited to read a book about books. (How many of you are still scarred from a certain swamp-and-horse event in The Neverending Story?) And I’m certainly not a counter-example either. So when I found a book set in Nazi Germany about a little German girl who falls in love with books, I knew I had to have it.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a remarkable piece of prose that interlaces a simple everyday life of more or less ordinary (but beautifully drawn) characters with a not-so-simple and not-so-ordinary time period. I must admit that 9 years after reading it, I can’t remember many details except two. First, the brilliantly chosen narrator is Death itself. And second, I spent days and weeks cursing the author for using the most horrendous writing trick ever. He lets you fall in love with a particular character in the beginning and then tells you that that person will die. Then you sit and read and bite your nails, and any time there is a tensed scene (and there are quite a few of them), you pop an imaginary Xanax, and then when nothing happens yet again, you make a doll of Zusak and go ask grandma where she stores her needles. No other writer has ever made me feel sicker, and I hate him for it, but at the same time, I have to begrudgingly nod and admit it was exquisite.

“She was a girl. In Nazi Germany. How fitting that she was discovering the power of words.”

An honorary mention for the best historical fiction I ever read goes to Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. I remember it being a huge-ass book (500+ pages), and I finished reading it within 9 days. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any notes or write a review, and I don’t remember much. Still, if you’re up for another WWII book, this time from occupied France, this should be a good pick.