This novel is narrated by Death.

The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak concerns a nine-year old skeleton, flung into the home of a foster family on Himmel Street. It is 1939, Nazi Germany. Our narrator has never been busier.

The novel concerns Liesel, the perpetually malnourished girl, and her fight for survival and her fight for books. She is the book thief. As am I, having knicked this extraordinary novel from an unnamed hostel in Bangkok.

Liesels's first theft takes place when her brother dies. Her mother is taking them on a journey to save herself and her children. She is Communist. Liesel's little sibling perishes of cold and malnutrition. He is hurriedly buried in the snow beside the train tracks. From the pocket of the gravedigger falls a book. Liesel secretly seizes upon it, although unable to read its contents: The Gravedigger's Handbook

I could go on. But then you wouldn't read the book, would you?

This is my favourite passage.

A Small Announcement About Rudy Steiner

He didn't deserve to die the way he did...

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy was robbery - so much life, so much to live for - yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his lifeless body. He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb-hit lips.

Yes, I know it.

In the darkness of my dark-beating heat, I know. He'd have loved it all right.

You see?

Even death has a heart.