He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

The Reader
Bernhard Schlink
Vintage Books

I have to be honest ... had I known that The Reader had been one of Oprah's Book Club selections, I probably wouldn't have picked it up off the table. It's not that I am book snob, or anything, but I am a firm believer that literature picks me and for whatever reason, books with the Oprah seal of approval don't usually call my name.

The Reader is a hauntingly beautiful, thought provoking novel. Growing up in postwar Germany, fifteen year old Michael Berg falls in love with a woman more than twice his age. Soon, the two become lovers and then one day, the mysterious woman just disappears.

When Michael next sees her, he is studying law and she, a former SS guard at Auschwitz, is on trial for war crimes. Schlink masterfully pulls his readers into the narrative and forces them to face their own notions of morality. His prose is enthralling, the story captivating, and the characters as real as you and me.

Schlink's The Reader will definitely find its way into my permanent collection. I haven't read anything so beautifully disturbing since Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Française. In fact, it makes me wonder what kind of literature will be born out of the current conflict in Iraq. It is amazing to me how imagination/artistic expression can transform the worst aspects of our humanity and make them shine.

Rating? Five rays of hope out of five.