The Reader

Bernhard Schlink

May 2001 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER •  Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany.

"A formally beautiful, disturbing and finally morally devastating novel." —Los Angeles Times

When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover—then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

Ratings and reviews

Schlink’s The Reader speaks to a reader’s nostalgia at the age that the protagonist Michael Berg is experiencing at that moment. A teenage-boy noticing every twitch made by the opposite sex relives the fantasies, and the emotional confusion so often plaguing a young man who is still figuring himself out in the world. What unifies these experiences is a fluidity only accomplished by an author who not only knows himself in his own writing, but bleeds passion in every word. Schlink, without a doubt, loved Michael is if he were his own son, and Hanna as if she were a long-distanced object of his own affection.

This was a very interesting book. I saw the movie first and I had hoped that there would be more to the characters in the book. I admit that I was almost a little disappointed at how good of an adaptation the movie was from the book. There were no surprises in the book, and it was a very fast read. The book was very interesting, but something was lacking from both the film and the book - a better sense of the characters, details... just that certain something...

Michael berg should had raised the quistion about her literacy at the time of her trial because he was also a lawer and he can't let her go to the jail on verg of those other liar ladies who lied. and a lawer can't move ahead with the lie. If he didn't bother about her trial then why did he send the tapes.To test her literacy, then he should had gone to the higher court for her bail.... BUT the novel was realy touching....

About the author

Bernhard Schlink was born in Germany in 1944. A professor of law at the University of Berlin and a practicing judge, he is also the author of several prize-winning crime novels. He lives in Bonn and Berlin.