Cirrus@Austlit

'Charlie Bloome wants to be a writer. Twenty-three years old, he is studying literature and living with his gamine partner, Alice - 'Lootie' - who plans to be a teacher and is less than supportive of Charlie's dreams.

'Into their lives comes the flamboyant Sebastian Chanteleer, an ageing but internationally acclaimed children's writer.

'Upon meeting, Lootie and Chanteleer establish an immediate bond. As the children's writer makes his presence felt in the younger couple's lives, Charlie struggles to come to terms with his own past and identity, and with what is happening to Lootie.

'Does Charlie have what it takes to be a writer? Does Chanteleer represent the best or worst a writer can be? And what happens to those caught up in a writer's world?' (From the publisher's website.)

'It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger and her younger brother are being taken by their mother to live with a foster family outside Munich. Liesel's father was taken away on the breath of a single, unfamiliar word - Kommunist - and Liesel sees the fear of a similar fate in her mother's eyes. On the journey, Death visits the young boy, and notices Liesel. It will be the first of many near encounters. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.'

[Source: Libraries Australia. Sighted 30/10/08]