How to use this Page

OK, here's your big, last-night-of-Hanukkah present: an embeddable flash player so you can enjoy The Book of Life on your own web page, blog, or social network!

And to go with it, I've uploaded a bonus episode, "Meet Markus!" This is a live, unedited talk recorded at the independent bookstore Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida with Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief.

Let me tell you a little more about the new podcast player widget, provided by Big Contact (btw, I must tell you that they have excellent customer service! They were a huge help to me when I ran into trouble setting up this player!). The player you see here is just an image ... for the real player, please look on the sidebar to your right. ---->
(If you're not viewing this post at www.bookoflifepodcast.com, you can see the player here.)

You can scroll down the list of episodes and click on any title to play that show. The little tab with the musical notes will give you the Show Notes for that episode. The tab with the lines takes you back to the full list of all episodes. The + tab tells you how to subscribe to The Book of Life podcast. And the tab with the people on it helps you embed the player on your own site, as does the big button below the player that says "Play my show on your site."

Please do try out the new player, and consider putting it on your site to bring the show to an even wider audience! Let's get even more people excited about Jewish books, music, movies and web treasures!

As always, you can also click the play button on this old familiar flash player to listen to the podcast now:

Or you can click MP3 File to start your computer's media player.

Background music is provided by The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band.

You know why I don't review books on my blog. Aside from the whole uncomfortable "how do you rate/review your peers?" question, there's the fact that I'm incapable of being rational about it. I admitted it here, when I withdrew my compliance with goodreads.com's star rating system. Except, a few days ago, I capriciously changed my mind again and wrote this about The Book Thief over at goodreads:

I love books like this: books that set up an improbable approach to a story and then totally pull it off by the sheer toughness and brilliance of the writing. As a writer, it's like watching an author do a high-wire act. He's not going to try THAT, is he? OMG, he is!!!

Some may say that parts of this book didn't work for them; I loved every last gutsy bit of it. It engaged all of my reading self: the emotional side, which rode waves of anxiety and grief and anger and joy with the characters; and the intellectual /writerly side which reveled in the language and the wry jokes and the metaphors. And then to sate the visual side of me, there were wrenching and brilliant illustrations to savor as well.

I know I said elsewhere that I was giving up on using the star system, but I guess I'm back on the bandwagon. At least for a little while.

(Then I clicked on all five stars.)

Yes, it's time for another Google Ping where we post a children's author's name over and over again to see how long it takes them to either: a) Google themself and find me, or b) find out through the grapevine that they have been Google Pinged.

We'll see who is the fastest of all the authors to answer the Google Ping. The author must respond in the Comment section of the entry and somehow identify themself as being who they really are.

The current leader is Lisa Yee with 3 hours 5 minutes with John Green's time of 42 minutes still in contention as he posted anonymously. The judges have determined that if John Green acknowledges the Google Ping on Brotherhood 2.0 today that the record time will stand.

Markus Zusak, the author of The Book Thief is the next up.



Here we go:

Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak, Markus Zusak,

Since Mr. Zusak lives in Australia and they look at their clocks upside down, I've decided to start this Google Ping in the morning rather than in the afternoon. And the clock has begun at 9:33am EST on 5/4/2007.