Another New Favourite Book

This post is going to be a little bit shorter than I'd planned. Offspring #2 decided to smack full-tilt into a door late this afternoon. Much blood, much screaming and and unscheduled trip to the doctor later and she has a nicely split lip, cut gum and bigger lips than even she normally has. Think Angelina Jolie lips with silicon lip injections. Yep, that big. Luckily she didn't need stitches and was sent home with steri-strips holding it all together. My poor little possum is feeling very sad and sorry.

And onto the book... I read Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief this week and fell hopelessly in love with yet another book. I'd go so far as to say it's the best book I've read since The Time Traveller's Wife. And you know how much I loved that one.

The book opens in 1939 Nazi Germany as Liesel, who is to become the book thief, and her younger brother are being taken to live with a foster family. The novel's narrator is Death but rather than being sombre and morbid he is funny, kind and even loving. The story spans the war years and tells of Liesel's life with her foster family, her friends and her love affair with books.

I did find it a bit hard to settle into initially, more to do with the style of the opening chapters than anything else. But once I was in I couldn't put it down and just read and read and read. I loved this book. The descriptions were gorgeous, Liesel's journey was inspirational and Death himself was such an entertaining narrator.

Go. Borrow this book. Buy this book. But most of all just read this book.