The Reader

Reviews / Votes

Deeply moving, sensitive enough to make me wince, a Holocaust novel, but light years away from the common run -- Ruth Rendell * Sunday Telegraph * Schlink's extraordinary novel The Reader is a compelling meditation on the connections between Germany's past and its present, dramatised with extreme emotional intelligence as the story of a relationship between the narrator and an older woman. It has won deserved praise across Europe for the tact and power with which it handles its material, both erotic and philosophical * Independent * Leaps national boundaries and speaks straight to the heart . . . a moving, suggestive and ultimately hopeful work * New York Times * The Reader by Bernhard Schlink is the German novel I have been waiting for: it objectifies the Holocaust and legitimately makes all mankind responsible -- Sir Peter Hall * Observer * For generations to come, people will be reading and marvelling over Bernhard Schlink's The Reader * Evening Standard * Haunting and unforgettable * Literary Review * Schlink's novel has a wondeful clarity of style that serves to emphasise the moral complexity of its subject matter * DAILY TELEGRAPH * [Schlink] explores the conflict between generations, wrestling with collective guilt and individual motivation. He examines the nature if understanding and tests the limits of forgiveness. He does these things with honesty, restraint and a moral precision both unsettling and rare. The result is as compelling as any thriller * The Times * The Reader cannot be ignored. It challenges core definitions of good and evil...The Reader brings us face to face with how little we know about the people around us -- Norman Lebrecht * EVENING STANDARD * A powerful book, it lingers in the mind * OXFORD TIMES * a profound and deeply moving examination of what drives perfectly ordinary people to do the most appalling things...hard to put down * YORK PRESS * A hauntingly beautiful read * SUFFOLK FREE PRESS * This mesmerising novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of post-war Germany * WESTERN MORNING NEWS * A tender, horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction * MATURE TIMES *