Book description
'A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience' [Independent on Saturday]
For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate,…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Reader as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
There are plenty of books about memory politics and Germans’ slow and difficult way of reckoning with their evil past. What I really like about this book is how it brings to life these complex moral challenges through the story of a relationship between a younger man and an older woman who turns out to have been a camp guard under the Nazis.
The novel is about the tensions between love, responsibility, and forgiveness, but above all, it is about the difficulty of being German after the Nazis.
From Frank's list on The best books on the transformation of Germany since Adolf Hitler.
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