The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

AZ: "Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: what should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust? "We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable... Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?"

A book group read, and a good fascinating one, although it only really came alive in the second half. Makes us ask ourselves hard questions about what we would have done in Hanna's situation. About it part the effects of the Holocaust on the next generation and in part about the sexual awakening of a 15 year old boy, about levels of responsibility and absolution. And, in a way, about the power of reading and redemptive power of words.