Must add another book to the list of favorite reads--- Book Thief by Markus Zusak. If you have not read it, I suggest that you do :) It is one of those books that stays with you, and don't let the fact that it is marketed as a Teen/Young Adult novel put you off. It is beyond awesome, one of the best-written new novels out there. Death is the narrator and it is set in Germany during WWII, but it is in no way over-done, contrived or depressing, though there are sad scenes. It centers around death's observations of life in a small German village and more specifically, his observations of a young girl whose desperation and hunger to learn to read cause her to steal books....from a cemetery, from a book-burning, from the mayor's library. It is a heartwarming, touching and awe-inspiring look at a time when life could have ended for everyone. It is a story of survival and a story of the power of words.