This is an emotional post, written on a whim. I won't attempt to pretend otherwise and I won't attempt to groom it.
My name is Mohammed and I am a book addict, and as an addict I am grateful to that special drug that gives me the high I have been longing for but have not experienced for a while. I just finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak because I heard so much about the book and when I knew it was going to be out as a movie I wanted to read it first so as not to spoil the story by watching the film first. The first thing about the loveliness of this experience for me was that although this book had been available in my local bookshop for a while, when I wanted to purchase it, it was out of stock. No where to be found in the city. I was planning a trip to Paris this summer so it seemed like a good idea to wait and buy it from there. Don't ask me why. Not only did the Paris trip turn out to be great, but also I picked up a copy of the story that will long live in my memory side by side with those nice memories of that summer vacation. And to top things off, it turned out to be a used copy. The addict in me has a sore spot for feeling that I have been moved by words on pages that passed through other hands and imaging how moved the owner of those hands had been by these same words.
My intention is not to write a review about the story nor promote it. My intention is to record a moment and a feeling that I know book readers don't usually feel and I know I haven't felt in quite a while. I once read that you know you are a book addict when you finish a book and you know that you have been touched for ever. Or something like that. I can't be trusted to quote accurately. After all I am an addict and currently on a high. Another thing I can loosely quote is a description of that moment when you turn over the last page of a story and your life has stood still and you look around and realize that life around you is just going on. This is what I am feeling now after having finished The Book Thief.
I don't know why I feel this and I won't get into the beauty and divinity of the words that washed over me as I read the book because to be honest, I didn't feel any of that. In fact, for more than 400 pages I was extremely underwhelmed. But for some reason, in the last 100, everything was different. I read through them with no interruptions, blocking out the sounds of my wife and daughter. I smiled. My eyes welled up and I decided to write down this post to capture it all because I know maybe a few days or weeks or months from now I will realize why this story affected me in such a way. But for now, I just want to revel in this feeling and I wanted to share it with you, as raw and fresh as I am experiencing it.
Right now I am on a high. Try finding a book that you've never heard of, become hooked by the title and cover art, then run between bookshops hoping that the last copy hasn't been sold yet, seize that last copy, and then head to the airport to catch your plane back home. If that is not enough, let me know how it feels when you finish reading that book and it is great!
