The Book Thief

Nine-year-old Liesel Meminger arrives at her new foster home on Himmel Street in Nazi Germany having stolen her first book from beside her brother's grave. Death narrates the story of what follows with an attention to beauty that its proximity to destruction has made acute: the books Liesel continues to steal, the words she learns to read, the Jewish man hidden in the basement, and the bombs that eventually fall on everything she loves. Markus Zusak's novel is one of the essential works of the last twenty years, its structural conceit serving emotional ends no conventional narration could achieve.

Allan Corduner's performance honors the novel's unusual voice, investing Death's narration with the precisely calibrated detachment that makes its moments of genuine grief so devastating. His command of the ensemble cast, particularly Hans Hubermann, is one of the great audiobook performances in contemporary literary fiction. The book's extraordinary award record reflects its standing in the culture; the audio version represents the ideal way to experience the prose.