Book club...

I know I don't normally write about books but this week I have decided to write about one of my favourite books and hopefully 'pay it forward'. I would love you to then post about another book to read so I can discover new loves. If this is something you all enjoy I might post this a regular thing every month.

The idea came from backpacking through the Middle East and Northern Africa one of my favourite things was being given a book by a fellow traveller in passing and then paying it forward to the next traveller I met along the way. I discovered some of my all time favourite stories this way and loved the idea that this book that I was holding had been from far off lands and been read by fellow lovers of travel... in a way these books linked us.

One of my favourite books I read during this time was 'Lovely Bones'. I remember being huddled in the back seat of a bus devouring this book on a long 10 hour bus ride in Morocco. I was sitting beside a 6ft 4 country vet, who sat there astounded as I read the whole thing in one sitting and promptly burst into tears at the end.

So for my first book of Book Club I offer up 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. Markus Zusak is a Melbourne born writer who was already an acclaimed children's author however this is his first adults book and it is amazing. Maybe it is because he is used to writing for children but his insights into the main character the little girl Liesel and her complex relationships is so beautifully astute. Through the eyes of the narrator you see her grow and develop and find love in the oddest of places.



'On Their way to Munich in 1939 to be given up to foster parents, Liesel Meminger's six-year-old brother dies and is buried beside the train tracks. Watching, Liesel acquires her first book - The Gravedigger's Handbook.

It will be one of the 14 that give solace to her, an abandoned child, struggling to survive in war-time Germany. Her father has been taken away, branded communist; her mother vanishes. Watching Liesel, whom he christens "the book thief", is the narrator of Markus Zusak's novel of the same name.' extract from The Age Review by Peter Pierce.

I do warn you though, if you don't like to cry this might not be a book for you. I hope though you enjoy it as much as me... happy reading! Cam xox

Available through any Australian big bookstore and online at Amazon.

p.S read it now I think they are going to release a movie and that is never as good!