Intensely observed debut… Perfectly balanced

A startlingly powerful debut... Not to be missed

Ambitious and powerful... Seiffert writes lean, clean prose. Deftly, she hangs large ideas on the vivid private experiences of her principal characters.... Poignant - and ultimately optimistic... Engrossing

What a bold book... Compelling... Challenging and substantial

Guilt, shame, responsibility, new beginnings, the individual in history - these are Seiffert's subjects, conveyed in a style of deceptive simplicity... Provocative and accomplished

Explores the experience of "ordinary" Germans...the descendants of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers...and poses questions about the country's psychological and political inheritance with rare insight and humanity

A stunning trilogy of linked stories about the Holocaust. Seiffert's book reminds me of Bernard Schlink's The Reader, but unlike that fascinating and intellectually provocative discussion about complicity and collective guilt, The Dark Room never veers away from its fictional roots... It doesn't read like a first novel

Excellent...a very readable, imaginative attempt to hold essential truths in living memory

It should be on everyone's reading lists

The hopelessness of love and passion during one of history's darkest hours is gently eked out... Questions of identity, loyalty and secrets are unavoidable, whether they stand uniformed and proud or lie hidden in a photo album. The Dark Room offers a haunting perspective on the ripples the most extraordinary of actions can cause. Seiffert is sparing with historical specifics, crafting the tale so lovingly that the most affecting moments lie in words unspoken and truths untold

Brilliant and hugely ambitious ... the kind of book that could be life-changing

Absorbing and searing

A major achievement

Deserves a place on the shelf with The Diary of Anne Frank - set to become a classic

Zusak makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable in the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse 5, with grim, darkly consoling humour

Zusak's playfulness with language leavens the horror and makes the theme more resonant - words can save your life ...It's a measure of how sucessfully Zusak has humanized these characters that even though we know they are doomed, it's no less devastating when Death finally reaches them

One of the most highly anticipated young-adult books in years

'Elegant, philosophical and moving. A work to read slowly and savour. Beautiful and important

Both gripping and touching, a work that kept me up late into the night feverishly reading the last 300 pages

Zusak's novel is a highwire act of inventiveness and emotional suppleness

A triumph of control ...one of the most unusual and compelling of recent Australian novels

A brilliant, quirky tale ...a superb book you will be recommending to everyone you meet

A literary gem

...the much talked about The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak...should soon have the UK under its spell.

It wouldn't surprise us if this became a great classic in years to come.

...this is a novel to touch even the coldest of hearts - definitely 2007's first must-read book.

A compelling tale from the start...definitely 2007's first must-read book.

A moving story from the German perspective of everyday civilian hardship and surivival under the Third Reich. It celebrates the power of words and love, in the face of unutterable suffering

Death turns out to be a tender narrator in Zusak's 'The Book Thief' [...] This novel movingly depicts the Himmel Street community, and its orphaned book thief, Liesel Meminger

Exceptionally good ... full of gruelling episodes... and an ending that will almost certainly move you to tears.