The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne (Random House)

This blog isn't going to be all that detailed. By now I'm sure a lot of people will have read this book, or seen the film and will therefore know the ending, but there will still be people around who are oblivious to the contents of this wonderful fable and I do not want to be a part of ruining this for them.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was one of the oblivious. Of course I had heard of the book and seen adverts for the film but I didn't really know much about it other than it centered around two boys and a concentration camp.

This beautiful wonderful book sucks you in with immense force and then spits you out quite unapologetically at the end. I was left distraught after reading it, though that may have been partly because I read it entirely, with no breaks, in just over an hour and that always makes me feel more connected to and invested in the characters than if I pick it up and put it down.

Up until reading this book, I had never really connected with the true horror of concentration camps. I read Anne Franks diary and found it sad, but it didn't linger in my mind and I didn't feel particularly empathetic towards her or her situation. In primary school my teacher tried to get us to understand how awful it was for the Jews to be persecuted for just being a Jew. Her attempt at this was to compare it to being like everyone in the class with brown eyes being sent away and punished- at that I just thought "Ha, I have blue eyes, unlucky brownies" and didn't really think much further than that.

This book however is scary. It truly brings home to you the frightfulness of the nature of the concentration camps, and, as most of the reviewers featured inside the cover of the book agree,
it will linger in your mind for a very very long time to come. I will definitely be giving this book to my children to read when they are learning about the Second World War, and I recommend this book to all adults as well.

Put quite simply, John Boyne has created a masterpiece.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog. By Muriel Barbery (Gallic)

I came across this book one day whilst browsing Waterstones and picked it up on a whim. Despite it apparently selling over 2.5 million copies worldwide and being serialised on BBC Radio 4 I had never heard of it, but I felt instantly attached to it once I had picked it up and read the blurb; I truly felt like I couldn't leave the shop without it, and when that happens I go with my instinct.

I was not disappointed. This little novel I found tucked away in the far corner of the bookshop is filled to the brim with charm, grace, beauty and inspiration.

It focuses around a grand Parisian apartment building, where an older lady named Renee is the concierge. Deeply philosophical and cultured, Renee keeps her true identity a wonderful secret from the outside world, fearing that if the self-important residents knew she was more knowledgeable than them then they would go to great measures to dispose of her (by sacking her, I don't think murder would have been on the cards!). Renee is the perfect example of why one should not judge a book by its cover. Rough and shabby on the outside, and yet admirable with a sparkling personality on the inside, the reader feels themself rooting for her to keep her magnificent secret from the residents; and to have the opportunity to escape her tiny apartment in the bottom of the building and experience some of her dreams.

Living in Renee's building is 12-year old Paloma Josse; precocious, charming and suicidal. This impossibly clever young girl is determined to end her life before she enters her teenage years in order to avoid living the predictable, privileged bourgeois future that she knows she is destined for. It is a credit to Barbery that she has made Paloma so likeable. Upon seeing the word "precocious" my initial thought was that I hoped she would commit suicide and give her spoilt whining a rest! However, within the novels first few interactions with Paloma she quickly endears herself to your heart. Not to mention how amusing it is that she wishes to kill herself to avoid a life of boredom and has no real feelings of depression. Her attitude is that it is a regrettable but very necessary action for her to take. Barbery has managed to perfectly capture the strange workings of a pre-teens mind, and that is no easy feat for a 41 year old adult to achieve.

Perhaps the most important turning point in the story is Kakuro Ozu's arrival. This brilliantly cultured Japenese Gentleman moves in and turns both Renee and Paloma's lives upside down (or the right way up if you think it about). Kakuro brings their lives together, forming an unlikely triangle of friendship and producing many philosophical and beautifully heartwarming moments along the way.

Barbery pulls off this philisophical masterpiece with such flare it's difficult to imagine a reader not being irrevocably connected to the characters and sentiments she presents. If you're looking for inspiration in your life, or enjoy philisophical discussions regarding the point of existence (amongst other topics) then this charming novel is for you.