Shreya's Treasures

"I looked up at the mass of signs  and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign difference of the world." THE OUTSIDER ( THE STRANGER ) ALBERT CAMUS FIRST PUBLISHED : 1942 GENRE : Novel, Crime Fiction, Philosophical Fiction, Absurdist Fiction, Existential Fiction The Outsider (previously translated from the French, L’Étranger, as The Stranger) is Albert Camus’ most widely known work, and shows his understanding of Absurdism. Camus utilized The Stranger as a platform for this concept and his questions about the meaning of life. There are a number of elements that are of interest in The Outsider, but most significant is the issue of the protagonist, Meursault, and how he, and his story, represent the philosophies that are portrayed in the novel.  Meursault, the major protagonist of The Outsider is shown as a self-absorbed man in the beginning but ultimately emerges to be a man of truth.  Meursault lives a quiet life of rou...

THE BOOK THIEF MARKUS ZUSAK GENRE : HISTORICAL FICTION, WAR NOVEL, YA FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED : 2005 "Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would all smile at the beauty of destruction." Try­ing to make sense of the hor­rors of World War II, Death in Markus Zusak's book "The Book Thief" relates the sto­ry of Liesel, a young Ger­man girl whose book-steal­ing and sto­ry-telling tal­ents help sus­tain her fos­ter fam­i­ly and the Jew­ish man they are hid­ing, as well as their neigh­bors. Fortunately, this book isn't about Death; it's about death, and so much else. It is about love, kindness, friendship, trust, books, and lots of thievery. It is about finding small happiness during the dark times, and having faith in humanity. Liesel Meminger's little brother dies just before her mother leaves her with the foster parents in a dismal town in southern Germany (her father, a Communist, has been take...