‘It’s only a small story, really, about among other activities: a girl, some phrases, an accordionist, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery …’

Narrated in the all-knowing matter-of-fact voice of Loss of life, witnessing the storyplot of the citizens of Himmel Road:

When nine-year-old Liesel arrives beyond your boxlike home of her new foster parents, she won’t get out of the automobile. Liesel continues to be separated from her parents – ‘Kommunists’ – for ever, and at the burial of her small brother, about The Reserve Thief she steals a gravedigger’s instruction manual which she can’t go through. It is the starting of her illustrious career.

In the care and attention of the Hubermans, Liesel befriends blond-haired Rudy Steiner, her neighbour obsessed with Jesse Owens. She also befriends the mayor’s wife, who hides from despair in her collection. Together Liesel and Rudy take books – from Nazi publication burning piles, from your mayor’s library, in the richer folks of Molching. With time, the family conceal a Jewish boxer, Utmost, who reads with Liesel in the cellar.

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By 1943, the Allied bombs are falling, and the sirens start to wail. Liesel stocks out her books in the air-raid shelters. But one day in the life of Himmel road, the wail of the sirens comes as well late …

A life-changing tale of the cruel twists of fate and the coincidences which all our lives hinge, that is also a joyous go through the power of reserve to nourish the soul. Its uplifting closing can make all readers weep.