Best Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received from The Book Thief’s Markus Zusak

[1:34]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to totally booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. This was one of my favorite episodes ever. I interviewed Markus Zusak about The Book Thief. If you didn't read The Book Thief when it came out twenty years ago, you have to read the new twentieth anniversary edition, which by the way, it's beautiful. But the book the The Book Thief, which I'm having trouble pronouncing, has been one of my favorites for a long time, and it was such a thrill to talk to Markus Zusak about it. He is the internationally bestselling author of six novels, including the book thief, I am the messenger, and bridge of clay. His most recent book is three wild dogs and the truth, a memoir. He lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and children. And just listen to all he had to say about writing and so much else. Welcome, Marcus. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about The Book Thief. Congratulations on twenty years of this amazing, amazing book. Oh my gosh.

[3:11]Markus Zusak: Thanks, Sibby. Thanks for having me too. It's great to be talking to you and yes, I've been looking forward to it. And it's funny you were just holding up the book and it's just such a glorious addition. It's amazing. So I feel so lucky. Feel honestly like it's my older, more successful brother or sister, and it just drags me around behind it. So And part of that's talking to you today. So thank you. You know, we can't take anything for granted in this job, as you know. And so,

[3:45]Zibby Owens: you know, this is just one of those real privileges. So I'm really great. I'm really happy to be here. Oh my gosh, I can't even believe you're saying that. I read The Book Thief like everybody else in the world, probably twenty years ago when it came out. And I was like, I think I remember everything about it. And then I opened it up again and I was like, I actually don't remember everything about it. So I'm gonna reread it. So I just finished rereading it and I have like, you know, my hand on my heart. Like I just, it's such a gut punch of a powerful emotional, I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. Like, and it's, you just can't put it down. It's, I mean, I know this is nothing new, but just to reread it at a different stage in my life, as I'm sure many people are doing with this gorgeous new edition and with everything going on in the world today, it is just incredibly powerful. Wow.

[4:35]Markus Zusak: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm I'm just relieved that held up after that amount of time because what what's happening now is I I like doing and whenever I do a talk, like, I don't really do readings, I suppose. But when there's been an event here in the last cup you know, whenever I come now I'm getting people who read it when they were in middle school or high school, and now they're in their they're adults. And they're saying, oh no. And some of them will say, I read it then. I read it through high school. I read it in college. Now I, and I just think it's, it never ceases to amaze me that people have read it more than once. Like I'll often say to people, I know how I feel about my favorite books and books I've loved. And when someone says, I loved your book, or it's my favorite book, you just think, God, I can't believe that's happening. And I never take that for granted. The best is that they often say, Oh, I'm sorry. They usually apologize. Oh, you must hear this all the time. And I say, I could never get tired of someone saying, they love my book because that's what you get into it for. And when you, you know, a lot of people think that Book Thief is my first book and it was my fifth book. So I've had the experience of putting books out that no one reads, you know, and then to have a book that has sort of captured people's imagination. It's what you dream about. And of course, I still have regrets. You know, there are certain moments in the book or lines in the book where I feel like I went too far with something or I just like that was a bit too whimsical or a bit too much. But I think it's okay. I think ultimately after twenty years, you gotta forgive yourself a bit. Wait. I'm curious what parts you regret. I think it's often just where, like, Death as a narrator, I wanted his language to be, you know, just slightly odd in that way. And I and I like that kind of language anyway, where you'll you'll write an image or a metaphor or something that doesn't quite make sense literally, but it has a feel to it or it's got a meaning somewhere buried under it that you kind of know or you count on the reader to bring to it, you know, that they'll they'll get it, you know. And so I just have a few like, just a few little moments. I think there was one where where death, for whatever reason, in one of his his little, like, asides. Yeah. I think there's one where he says something like, I don't know and I don't know why. It felt right at the time where he says it it was like where he would normally say, here is a small fact or here is a small note or here's this or that. There's one that says Book Thief Productions presents. Oh, yes. Uh-huh. Sort of like Monty Python ish was sort of it was a kind of strange thing. At the time, it felt right. And when I look back, I'd go, that'd first be thing I'd change. Oh, interesting. But as you know, when you're getting Your books just go into print and then you just go, oh my God, you're so worried. And then you think, oh, but this is what makes me write the next book. You write the next book to atone for the sins of the last one, I suppose. And I guess, and I don't know if I'm repeating myself now, but I still think it was better to go too far with The Book Thief than not far enough. And I think, you know, the book was, I think there are a lot of gambles in that book. But I wanted to just keep going for it and going for it and going for it. And that's why it has that spirit, I think. And I think, you know, whilst there, I think there could be those few missteps throughout the book or quite a few missteps. The book has a spirit because of those things. So, and, you know, one of my heroes is Neil Young and sometimes you'll hear a track or you'll hear a song and you go, oh, there's actually a mistake in that. Or there's a bit where his voice faltered. And you know that they probably sat there and listened to it and they went, do you want to fix that? And he probably said, I mean, I don't know. I don't want to assume, but you feel like probably there's an idea of, no, that that had a feel to it. That had and we would destroy that if we went in and tried to fix it. So I think I'm happy to let The Book Thief sit and try to improve The Book Thief by writing another book maybe. And and but yeah, we'll see that for whatever reason, it's just got some lucky magic dust sprinkled over it. Again, that's why I get to talk to you and why I get to come. Like I'm in Philadelphia at the moment and had a really great night with readers here and you just see what it means to people and you just think, yeah, I've got the best job in the world.

[9:29]Zibby Owens: Wow. Well, the fact that you regret a couple lines in here, which I just read and didn't think twice about that section. I was like, Oh, that's funny. You have to kind of go for it. And your whole thing in this book is words and how they're not always right. And words themselves become like a character. And so the fact that now you look back and like all of us self critical people have thoughts about it, that just like goes along with the territory.

[10:01]Markus Zusak: Yeah. And I think writers, artists or people, you know, songwriters that, you know, at the end of the day, we're all like quite vulnerable. And that's a really good thing. And that and that takes you into the the creative areas where where you're unsure. And and and that's the best place to be even though it's the trickiest place to be. And I often talk about writing as oh, the world, like, and I'm always trying to structure things, you know, where people say, oh, are you a gardener or a plant? Whatever the term is at that moment. A plant. A

[10:36]Zibby Owens: a pancer or a plotter. That's right.

[10:40]Markus Zusak: Listen to me, are you a gardener? I'm definitely a plotter, but you can't control everything. And so I think I've been guilty in the past of just like, write chapter headings over and over again, all the way through towards the end of the book, because ultimately I just always want to feel close to the book. I just want feel like it's near me and I don't have to run 10 miles to get there and then beat the door down to climb back inside the book. But a lot of the time you do feel like you're walking down a dark corridor where you're trying to find a light switch. Matter how much, how hard you've been trying to to be to feel safe in it. You're never quite safe. And that's that's when that's that's how you discover your surprises. So the the best part of any day is I I describe it a little bit like climbing a mountain, but there's the promise of a sandpit at the top where you just get to play. But you don't get the sandpit without climbing the mountain first. That's what I love when I'm reading, where I'll read a sentence in someone's book and go, I mean, an example that I often use is from The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay where Michael Chabon I never know how to pronounce the last name. He says he describes big ocean liner coming into New York Harbor and he says the Rotterdam looked like a mountain wearing a dinner jacket. Or the Rotterdam came into New York Harbor like a mountain wearing a dinner jacket. And that's where I just go, oh, that's a writer in the sandpit playing with words. But then again, there are writers like him and others that I feel like, you know, they just wake up in the morning, you know, you know, sit, yawn, scratch their back and then get to work and come up with amazing, amazing things. But, you know, I would never wanna again presume how other people come up with these beautiful lines. Think it might just be a mystery to all of us.

[12:49]Zibby Owens: But you do it yourself. So, you know, it's that whatever magic you said is sprinkled. I mean, it happens, but I think that you show us and also in all of this bonus material in the new edition, which is beautiful, you show us how you're painstakingly crossing out chapter headings and trying again and how first you had the book that you've told from Liesl's perspective and you had to try to get into it and telling it from the perspective of death came later. Once you make a decision like that, creativity knows no bounds because you could do anything, right? Who else has tried that?

[13:26]Markus Zusak: Yeah, that was a real freedom. And and then there were little breakthroughs within that. Like, even the first death I used was not quite right. It was only when I came back to thinking, you know, and I'd written 200 pages with death and he was a bit too mean spirited, let's say. And sarcastic and sardonic and sadistic. He was really enjoying his work too much. And it when I went, I thought of the last line of the book and then I went, oh, that's it. Death's actually kind of vulnerable. As I am writing it and death's trying to work us out and how the same thing can be so beautiful and so relentlessly terrible and terrifying and put those two things together. And you have all of us, you have humans, you have everything that's happening now. You have everything. You have how you wanna treat your neighbor and how we deal with everything that's going on. And I want death to feel like that too. And so this idea that death was the missing piece of us, that was when the book really came to life. That was the first breakthrough. And the other one, actually, that came second. But the first one was when I started using those little asides where it says here is a small fact and here is Let me tell you a little bit about this. And that lent itself to the playfulness of the book and that playfulness of language. And also when that happened, I still can see exactly sitting at my desk at home in this little townhouse we were living in. And I was going through the work and that's, I guess, the thing where I say to people, you don't always have to be working really hard. You don't have I think it's easy for us writers to sort of, you know, we like to act like, oh, it's so hard. So and it is. Yeah. It is hard and it is a struggle and it is, but it's also a joy. And one of my favorite quotes is from a great Australian playwright named David Williamson. And there was a movie made based on one of his plays and there were I love DVDs because you get the extras. And in the extras, there was an interview with him and he said, said, Oh, these writers who say every word is like a drop of blood on the page. And then he smiles and he just said, Oh, it's bullshit. He said, You do it because you love it. And so I love that it's not easy as well. And and and it's those those moments where the light does suddenly shine down. And so when I first had that, I was going through the work and just being near it, not working hard, just tinkering with it really. And I heard that sentence. Here is a small fact. You are going to die in the the first page. And my instinct immediately when I heard that in my head, I saw it in the middle of the page. And so I just went, do it. Just do it. The same way you'll hear, you know, what, not that I would compare, but and I remember hearing an Olympic swimmer who had won the backstroke in maybe 1992 or something. He said, he gave a talk at my university because he was one of the students there. And he said, for I had a whole race plan where I was gonna accelerate, you know, with 20 meters to go or whatever. And he said, but I came off the wall at the 50 meter mark and I heard a voice in my head that said, go now. And he said, and I did, and I won. And so it's just that thing of you have these instincts that you don't know where they come from. They're in your subconscious, but they're alive at the time of writing. And when they come to you, it's really important to recognize them, even if they sound like a mistake. And it's, again, a pretty ludicrous, yeah, ludicrously great comparison. Yeah, just when, I think it's in, it's a documentary from ages ago, on interview ages ago, where John Lennon was talking about, oh no, Paul McCartney was talking about John Lennon. And he said when he was writing, Hey Jude, and one of the lines in it, I think it's about, you know, with the world on your shoulder or something. And he said, as he was just playing an early draft, and he said to John, said, oh, yeah, I'll fix that bit. Don't worry. And John said to me, you won't, you know, you won't because that's the best thing in the whole song. And I love that story of just sort of recognizing nonsense a little bit. And I think that's such a big part of being a writer that it's a kind of, you know, recognising nonsense and then taking that nonsense seriously to make it work and make a book kind of stand out in its own peculiar way as well. Then, so it's kind of, you're always balancing, you know, I guess joy, discipline, joy, discipline all the time to make a book work. I mean, I don't know. I mean, we could talk in such a jumble all day about how creativity comes to us and how we kind of try to corral it into something that makes sense to the world. Today's

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[21:53]Zibby Owens: Well, you show us also in the book how creativity is fostered in Liesl, right? From learning the alphabet to the end where she's actually writing and sharing her feelings. And it's like tracking the writer's experience as well. How do you make sense of the insanity of the world? Do you have to start with one letter at a time and then you have to write one page at a time and who knows, it just might be the thing that saves you.

[22:18]Markus Zusak: Yeah. I mean, and to me, it's what, talking about that, we're talking about one line at a time is to me, and that's why novels for so many reasons. It's funny, every time you say something or ask something, like six answers come up because it's such a good thought or question. And I just to me, it's what made me wanna be a writer in the first place was reading books as a teenager. And it was just black words on white paper, but I was seeing it in color. And to me, and I was believing it. You know, just I love that idea. And that's what I say to people too who want to be writers is I say, look, yeah, it's really hard and it's really complicated. But if you really distill it to a really simple thing, what you're trying to do is make something up that someone else can believe. And so the idea is, like, when that's the question I'm always asking myself because you're building something as you're writing it. And you're sort of going, okay. Does it have enough words in it, but not too many words so that the reader is sitting there and that and that magic act has happened where they know it's not I'm almost sounding like George Costanza, know, where it's No, you're his advice to Jerry, you know, remember, it's not a lie if you believe it. Kramer's

[23:38]Zibby Owens: about to come into our Zooms, slam open the door. Exactly.

[23:42]Markus Zusak: And it's just that that thing of I'm convincing myself the whole time. I'm convincing myself that this is true what I'm writing. And and, and in a way, it is true because you're you're making something out up to arrive at a truth. And that's what all novels are doing. And I remember going to the legendary Robert McKee, you know, story seminars about film writing, just in the sense of just going there to hear someone talk about story. And and I remember in the book he signed, he he it was right he he signed that as right in every book that he's ever signed. I think it was like, write the truth. And every now and again, a friend of mine, that's what would- Yeah. If Simon- If he finishes a book and he'll write the truth to me in it. And just as a flashback to that and, you know, you're always wanting to learn, you're always wanting to figure out how to do it. And I think that's why it's such an interesting job as well as, you know, especially you sit down, you're trying not to write the same book every time either. And so, you know, twenty years later, I think that's like, I think why as well you can look back and sort of forgive yourself because you're always trying to improve. Otherwise, you know, if you're always looking back going, geez, I was really good back then, it's probably time to stop. So I think there's definitely still plenty of room for improvement and just trying to get it right. And as we try to do with everything in our lives. So yes, I'm just lucky I get to do it through writing and through the novel, and which I still think is so essential because, you know, it's one of the best ways to open up the world and to imagine what life is like for somebody else as we all know.

[25:33]Zibby Owens: Yeah. The capacity for empathy when you show us the real truth of the characters and who they are and their wants and feelings, and it's just, it's incredible. I mean, I feel like I literally know these people in your book and, you know, tears in my eyes at some of the outcomes. It's just incredible. These people don't even exist. And I'm sitting here like in 2026, you know, crying over the loss of a fictional character. Like, that's sort of messed up when you think about it.

[26:04]Markus Zusak: You know, it's so funny that you say that because people often will say, oh, who do you write your book? Like, who is this book for? They say a really an example of like the book after The Book Thief that I wrote, Bridge of Clay took thirteen years and I was really struggling with that book. Was a was a really hard one and it So I started reading through it with, like I read through it with my wife. So she'd have a manuscript, I'd have one. And I did that with some of my most trusted colleagues as well. And there was one point where I was really emotional at the end reading that book. And one of my friends who was with me and she said at that moment, she said, oh, who is that? Who is that in your real life? Like, that that you're, you know, sort of crying for there. Like, who is that that you're emotional about? And and I said, oh, no. It's nobody in my real life. Like, it's it's for them. It's for them that I'm getting emotional. And and so I've realized that especially that's when a book really starts to work is when you start to let go of the audience and you're writing the book not for any real person, you're writing it for the people in the book because they're real to me. They matter to me. And that belief that or that suspension of belief that you'll see, and that's the thing, it's not a suspension of belief. It's almost like a special form of belief. Almost like a supersonic belief when you're inside a novel believing everything in it. And to me, that's one of the great joys of being alive. And as is, you know, the idea of, like even some of the most, there are beautiful tragedies in your life, whether it's losing your dog or losing a parent or losing, you know, something where you just, where you feel something really intensely. And that's actually some of the, there's also some of the best moments of your life. Because what are we alive for if not to feel things with that intensity and to feel and to get that? And that's what I'm trying to reach in a novel is for people to feel things, to feel extra human when they're reading. I think maybe that is, but people say, how how has this book survived twenty years? And maybe it is that kind of intensity and that kind of the intensity that's in that book that, and I, you know, and if I think it was a bit, I wrote a bit too emotionally, I don't regret that. That's one of the things I don't regret is it is a really emotional book and I'm an emotional writer and, you know, and I'm happy to take criticisms for that as well because you've just, you gotta do what you have to do.

[28:46]Zibby Owens: I'm not throwing out any criticisms. So you don't have to worry about that here. You know, it's funny because I've been walking around carrying this book, is obviously quite large, beautiful, but you know, it's 500 plus pages. And my kids who are, my younger kids are middle schoolers, they're in the graphic novel generation and all of And they're like, How can you read a book that long? How are you doing that? Isn't it so much work? Think You have about all this. I'm like, What are you talking about? This is the greatest gift. I know I'm walking around the apartment right now, but I'm really in a totally different world. How do you sell that to kids in this new generation who's not even reading as much?

[29:27]Markus Zusak: I think it's a couple of things where sometimes we despair when we're at the town hall station in Sydney and there are these long benches where they're diagonally against the wall. You can sort of just lean back against them And you just see everybody on their phone and you just go, oh my God, what has become of us? And then every now and again, see somebody reading a book. But at the same time, I think kind of okay. Know, I mean, they're reading graphic. You talk about your kids reading graphic novels and that's I still think there's still at the end of the day, story comes before books, you know, at the end, or story comes before movies. Like movies, graphic novels, books, like they're all part of that. They're all different things except that they all have story in them. And so I really liked that idea. And I think so I look at it a little bit more of that fiction's important. Making things up is important. Imagination is important. And so when it's quite funny, I went from that experience of being at the station or anytime I go on public transport and now like hardly anyone's reading a book. Some people are reading a Kindle, some people are reading on their phone. Realized that. But we went into one of the great big and great bookshops in Sydney. And I went in with my daughter and she's 19. And I jokingly said to her, there were people everywhere. They're in the manga section, they're in the novel section, they're in the non fiction and all of that. But it was, and it's a huge bookshop called, I think called Keno Kanaya. We're in there and I said, I turned to my daughter and I said, said, see all of this, just like, like going to the Strand or Powell's or something in Portland, like it's a whole block of books. I just said, see all that, that's the competition. And, yeah. And, but it's the best competition in the world. Like, it's great in the, in the sense of you still think, oh, this still matters to people. It still matters, and we all still wanna be taken away. We all still wanna be part of some something within us. And I think we understand that. And a lot of people are people coming back to vinyl records, people coming back to books, people wanting to read Moby Dick, people wanting to read. And I still often think as well that we underestimate young people at our peril, you know, that they're so much more capable of things. You know, my son who's 15 or 16, I worry a bit about him because he used to be such a big reader and you know, and less so at the moment, but then you sort of go, but because of him, I'd never read The Hobbit and that's probably his favorite book. He's the only person in our family who's read Lord of the Rings. And so I think in a lot of cases we underestimate each other all the time too. And I mean, and last night here in Philly, there was a dad with his daughter and just seeing her clutching her copy of The Book Thief. I mean, fact that it's The Book Thief is obviously extra special for me, but if I saw that on a train or on a bus or out on the street, I'd be just equally happy no matter what the book was. Because then that's where you just think it's still happening and still going to happen. It's just, yeah, so we just need to have that luck sometimes to have someone in our life to say, all right, just do the work here and it will reward you.

[33:10]Zibby Owens: Marcus, I wanna talk to you for like the rest of the workday or forever. I feel like I've just taken a masterclass in writing or something and to get to talk to you after rereading this book has been just such a joy. And I love that one of the main takeaways is just to listen to the voice in your head, even if it doesn't make total sense and you think you're doubting yourself and you're like, I have to do it. And that's what makes great art. When you take a stand and you try something different and you add to the conversation and that's exactly what you did and it's why it will always hold up because still nobody has done exactly the same thing since. It's very, very cool. So anyway, it's been an honor. Oh, no, Jibby, thank you. And it's also, it's just that idea. I just say to people,

[33:57]Markus Zusak: it's not that The Book Thief is better than anyone else's book or worse. It's sort of the one thing that I kind of finally understood at some point was that I've I've realized that it's a book that only I could have written. And that's what I wish for people who are just starting to write or want to be writers is, is you write the book that only you can write. And I tell you just can't, you don't get to decide what sort of success you have or what happens beyond that, but that is what you do get to decide and to be close to it without being too hard on yourself sometimes too. You don't have to be killing yourself the whole time. Sometimes forget that we're supposed to love this job and we do love it. So and that's and it goes both ways. Talking to you has reminded me of that. And and so, yeah, it's been a joy for me having a chat as well. And just to I love one of my favorite words, and I'm sure you have as well, have all these favorite words, but probably number one, one of my favorite word is camaraderie. And to feel that through books, through stories and the love of that talking to you, it's been special. So thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Thanks for coming on.

[35:09]Zibby Owens: All right, have fun on your tour.

[35:11]Markus Zusak: Thanks Zibby. Okay. Yeah, have a great day over there. You too. Sorry, didn't meet you in person Next time. No, same. One day, one day. One day. All right, all the best with everything you're doing. You're doing a thousand things, you know, I admire it so much. I feel so lazy You in

[35:30]Zibby Owens: are not lazy.

[35:32]Markus Zusak: Thank you. And all the best for your family too. Thanks to you as well. Alright. Bye, Kat. Bye.

[35:38]Zibby Owens: Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.