If ever there was a book to go into blind, it would be this one. I’ve never felt so morally conflicted while reading. Much like the award-winning film, it’s thought-provoking in a way I’ve never quite experienced. I found it hard to put down. “There’s no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.” The Reader is told in three parts, across many years. Set in post-war Germany, 15-year-old Michael Berg is suffering from hepatitis, and becomes sick outside the building...

On my last-minute whim,I grabbed,a story of an erotic love affair betweena 15-year-old German boy, Michael Berg, and 35-year-old, Hanna Schmitz!Suffering from hepatitis and Hanna nurturing him, In due course both develop passionate feelings for each other.They keep their relationship under wraps. He would read out to her, and not vice-versa (avoiding spoilers, on why?)Eventually, as Michael matures, the relationship starts dwindling,Hanna disappears into thin air!Destiny bestows a second encount...

القارئ ...الرواية التي ترجمت إلي ٣٧ لغة و تعتبر أول رواية ألمانية تصل إلي قائمة الكتب الأكثر مبيعاً في صحيفة النيويورك تايمز..الرواية في جزئها الأول بتحكي عن مايكل المراهق اللي عنده ١٥ سنة و أقام علاقة جنسية مع هانا السيدة التي تبلغ من العمر ٣٦ عاماً ..مع تقدمه في العمر وتطور الأحداث بنشوف إزاي أثرت هذه العلاقة علي حياته وعلي مشاعره تجاه الآخرين... أما الجزء التاني-وهو الجزء اللي أعتقد أعطي شهرة لهذه الرواية- اللي بيتكلم فيه عن الهولوكوست و المحاكمات التي تمت بعد سقوط الرايخ الثالث وهتلر ..الجزء...

What About the Children?The Reader is a profound exposition of the 'second generation' issues concerning moral guilt for the Holocaust. But it is, I think, also relevant more generally to the way in which human beings get ensnared incrementally into the evils of their society. We are all inevitably involved in this larger problem. And, like the SS guards at a Nazi death camp, we are unaware of the moral peril of our situation, and unwilling to remove ourselves from that situation even when its h...

This is the deep character development and type of writing that i've been craving. A book that made me think and ask so many questions. Sometimes I felt like I was struggling through really heavy writing, but the actual story itself and the moral questions that arise from its telling were really, really interesting and I surprised myself with how much I found myself contemplating this novel. Someone told me there's a movie with Kate Winslet and she is my actual wife so i'm gonna go track that do...

This novel breaks so many taboos, it is hard to know where to start reflecting on it. And yet, its plot is not unrealistic or uncommon. It is about a sexual relationship between a young man and an older woman.It is about illiteracy and shame.It is about crimes against humanity, committed out of helplessness and an egocentric wish to hide one's own weakness.It is about the Holocaust weighing on the shoulders of post-1945 Germany's population.It is about the past being reshaped in memory when furt...

I'm not really sure why this book is considered one of the best books of all time and managed to make into the big 1001 list. Most of the time, even if I don't like a book, I tend to understand why someone else picked it. In this case, I'm rather clueless. Is it, perhaps, that people see in it some message about humanity when Hanna won't purchase her freedom with the secret she has kept hidden for years? Is it the vivid sexual tale of a teenage boy with an older woman? Are we supposed to be shoc...

There are some books you know will stay with you forever, and Bernhard Schlink's The Reader is definitely one of them. It has been highly critically acclaimed, winning the Boston Book Review's Fisk Fiction Prize, and it deserves all the praise it has received. The Holocaust is a difficult, though much covered, subject matter, and this novel has a sure touch and an appealing lack of judgment with it. The story begins in the world of almost-childhood of fifteen-year-old Michael Berg, recovering fr...

I have the feeling there's more than one way of looking at this book. On one hand it can be viewed as a bildungsroman, it follows Michael Berg since the age of 15 till full maturity. On the other hand, it's the post-war German generation coming to terms with their past, the Nazi crimes and their parents' guilt. Guilt, actually, is a recurring theme in the novel: Hanna is guilty of war crimes, Michael is guilty for betrayal (plus he feels guilty for having loved Hanna and asks himself if that mak...

booring. is that a review?? this was just very flat to me. i wasn't offended by the subject matter - i could care less about the "scandalous" elements. but the writing was so clinical and thin. at one point, i blamed the translation, but c'mon - its not that hard to translate german to english (i can't do it, of course, but it's supposed to be one of the easiest translations) i have nothing helpful to say about this except i was bored bored bored. the characters were unappealing, the "twists" we...