Schmidt, Johnna MarieThe Book Thief and Other Stories is a collection of short works of fiction. Thematically, the stories share a concern with central characters who have difficulty negotiating social boundaries within forced communities (meaning a community of people who have not necessarily chosen each other but have nevertheless ended up together, such as groups of co-workers or neighbors). The central characters in this collection can loosely be grouped as those guilty of encroaching upon social boundaries which others might wish to keep intact, and those wishing to avoid encroachment. In all cases, the central character's relation to their surrounding community is at risk. Stylistically most of the stories experiment with first person point-of-view modalities, including two stories told in epistolary form. In diction and syntax the narratives shift between passages written in heightened, poetic language and those written in a more simple prosaic style.en-USThesisLiterature, AmericanFictionstoriesbook thiefneighborsco-workersmistakes