Extraordinary, resonant and relevant, beautiful and angry.

...a beautifully balanced piece of storytelling...Unsettling, thought-provoking, life affirming, triumphant and tragic, this is a novel of breathtaking scope, masterfully told. It is an important piece of work, but also a wonderful page-turner.

A moving work which will make many eyes brim.

This is a weighty novel worthy of universal acclaim. A sense of dread prevades this beautifully written novel. As The Book Thief draws to a close, Death says: "There's a multitude of stories that i allow to distract me as I work." The story of the Book Thief, who tried to change the world in her own small way, proves one formidable and inspiring distraction.

Brilliant and hugely ambitious ... the kind of book that could be life-changing

...breathtakingly good.

A magical tale.

...a fantastic book...it packs a huge emotional punch.

A tonic much needed amid the ominous menace of an era of such calamity.

Quirky, engaging and beautifully written

His faith in the transformative power of storytelling bestows this gentle but worthwhile novel with its own narrative strength and power.

Absorbing and searing

A major achievement

Deserves a place on the shelf with The Diary of Anne Frank - set to become a classic

Zusak makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable in the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse 5, with grim, darkly consoling humour

Zusak's playfulness with language leavens the horror and makes the theme more resonant - words can save your life ...It's a measure of how sucessfully Zusak has humanized these characters that even though we know they are doomed, it's no less devastating when Death finally reaches them

One of the most highly anticipated young-adult books in years

'Elegant, philosophical and moving. A work to read slowly and savour. Beautiful and important

Both gripping and touching, a work that kept me up late into the night feverishly reading the last 300 pages

Zusak's novel is a highwire act of inventiveness and emotional suppleness

A triumph of control ...one of the most unusual and compelling of recent Australian novels

...the much talked about The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak...should soon have the UK under its spell.

...this is a novel to touch even the coldest of hearts - definitely 2007's first must-read book.

A compelling tale from the start...definitely 2007's first must-read book.

A moving story from the German perspective of everyday civilian hardship and surivival under the Third Reich. It celebrates the power of words and love, in the face of unutterable suffering

Death turns out to be a tender narrator in Zusak's 'The Book Thief' [...] This novel movingly depicts the Himmel Street community, and its orphaned book thief, Liesel Meminger

Your emotions by the end of this novel are shot to pieces, but it's well worth it.

Although already a bestselling children's book, THE BOOK THIEF's insightful and poignant tone and appealing characters...are amply equipped to capture adults, too.

In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines… Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat.

Spoils reeks of the fog and futility of war… It has its own blue-collar beauty as it tells its tale from three perspectives: a gay, female US soldier, an Egyptian jihadist and a US tank commander.

Brian Van Reet has firsthand combat experience to draw upon for this powerful piece of fiction, rendering it an intensely humane story, giving credible authenticity to the plot, and scenes presented to the reader… Enlightening, thought provoking and hauntingly mesmerising, I cannot recommend Spoils highly enough to anyone interested in novels about war and conflict.

Every page brims with brutal authenticity.

Spoils bears eye-widening witness to valour, horror, violence, cruelty and absurdity.