The Reader

THE READER by Bernhard Schlink (translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway) is written in three parts and in the first-person voice of the 15-year-old Michael Berg. I could not put it down the moment I picked it up. The New York Times says that it is “arresting, philosophically elegant, morally complex...” Focus Munich says that it is “breathtaking” and Los Angeles Times says this: “From the first page, THE READER ensnares both heart and mind.” How true. And oh, I forgot to mention that Elle says this: “Haunting... Memorable... with small moments of highly charged eroticism.”