Authors from A to Z: Z

Authors from A to Z is a posting challenge hosted by

Heather at Proud Book Nerd. The challenge is simple: each day for the month of June (except Sundays) share your favorite authors whose last name corresponds to the letter for that day.  
For more info, click the photo.

How I'm participating in the challenge:

This year I am going to try to highlight just one author each day that I am really taken with. If I can't come up with one, it may be a book, a song, or a surprise!

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you have followed the Authors from A to Z challenge this year and to Heather at Proud Book Nerd for hosting such a fun event!

Z = Markus Zusak

Here we are at the end! I know I'm a day late in getting this challenge finished, but I couldn't leave it incomplete. I am also very glad that I had an actual, no-foolin' Z author to use this year! When I realized that I'd read not one but two books by this author and liked both, lets just say there may have been a fist in the air.

I am even more glad that I got to read Markus Zusak's books. I had heard over and over again how amazing The Book Thief was, and after convincing myself (you know how I am when it comes to the possibility of the sads), I read it and it was brilliant. Literally, brilliant. The narrator is Death, after all. Then it was suggested to me (by none other than up-and-coming author of the recently acquired novel Faking Normal, Courtney C. Stevens) to read another of Zusak's books, I Am the Messenger. I enjoyed that one as well. If you want something different, smart, and thought-provoking, read a Zusak novel.