Death Note by Tsugami Ohba, volumes 1 & 2

AZ: "Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects - and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal...or his life? Light tests the boundaries of the Death Note's powers as L and the police begin to close in. Luckily Light's father is the head of the Japanese National Police Agency and leaves vital information about the case lying around the house. With access to his father's files, Light can keep one step ahead of the authorities. But who is the strange man following him, and how can Light guard against enemies whose names he doesn't know?"

It's funny, I only really warmed to this on second reading, and now I'm hooked and will have to wait until I can afford more issues. Humph! The interaction between the idiosyncratic slightly odd L and the charming hyperintelligent murderous Light is interesting in the extreme and the links with Japanese mythology are fascinating

Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

AZ: "The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny ...The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London. Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondon, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up ...and some of its lost and broken people too. Here discarded umbrellas stalk with spidery menace, carnivorous giraffes roam the streets, and a jungle sprawls beyond the door of an ordinary house. UnLondon is under siege by the sinister Smog and its stink-junkie slaves; it is a city awaiting its hero. Guided by a magic book that can't quite get its facts straight, and pursued by Hemi the half-ghost boy, the girls set out to stop the poisonous cloud before it burns everything in its path. They are joined in their quest by a motley band of UnLondon locals, including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas, Obaday Fing, a couturier whose head is an enormous pincushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle. The world of UnLondon is populated by astonishing frights and delights that will thrill the imagination."

Completely bonkers, hugely imaginative, witty and entertaining. I love the idea of a world where MOILs (Mostly Obsolete in London) find a new life, broken umbrellas, old red routemaster buses and all manner of discarded items. The carnivorous giraffes were truly terrifying. On a brilliant par with Barker's Abarats

Puppet Master by Joanne Owen

AZ: "From riches to rags, Milena is growing up in the city of Prague at the turn of the twentieth century. Her parents' once prosperous theatre lies in disrepair and her life seems to be in ruins, and has been since that fateful night her father died in a tragic accident and Milena's beautiful, talented Mother went missing. No trace of her has been found. But Milena has never lost hope that she will come back. The day she meets the flamboyant Puppet Master and his menacing proteges, the twins Zdenko and Zdenka, under the shadow of Prague's famous Astronomical Clock in the Old Town square is, coincidentally, the date of her mother's birthday. And it's the day Milena's grandmother chooses to reveal to her the story of her ancestors... and of her legacy. Or perhaps it's not such a coincidence. Joanne Owen's debut novel skilfully mingles the legends of Bohemia in a story rich in the traditions of circus, theatre and magic, all set in a city waiting to lay bare a myriad of secrets."

Another wonderfully formatted book, illustrations and text interact. Plays on the instinctive fear I think is common of marionettes and anything which resembles a human but is not. The Prague setting is also fascinating

The Invention of Hugo Cabaret by Brian Selznick

AZ: "ORPHAN, CLOCK KEEPER, AND THIEF, twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival dependson secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric girl and her grandfather, Hugo's undercover life and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo's dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery."

This is just such a beautiful book, sparse text interspersed with pages of black and white illustrations, it's an experience as much as a book, full of the slightly alien atmosphere of Paris. I love the feeling of a child living parallel to normal life.

Change of Heart by Jodie Picoult

AZ: "June's first husband was killed in a car crash. Against all the odds, her daughter was uninjured and, in another miracle, June found love again with the policeman who rescued them. Six years on they are a happy family, June pregnant with their own child. But now June's second daughter is dying without the new heart she so urgently needs. And her first daughter, along with her husband, is dead, killed by Shay Bourne, an itinerant workman they welcomed into their home. The crime was so heinous that Shay has been given the death penalty for the first time in 69 years in New Hampshire. Shay is going to die, and he is looking for redemption. He wants to give June's daughter his heart . . ."

A man receives the death penalty for murdering a little girl and her stepfather. There is no question whether or not he did it so, knowing Picoult, the heart of the matter must be elsewhere. The murderer has no previous history of violence and after his death he wants his heart to be given to the surviving daughter, the murdered girl's half sister who was in utero when her father and sister were murdered. Stranger occurances begin taking place in the prison and the reader is as torn between faith and scepticism as the characters. When we are made aware of Shay's past of taking the blame for actions such as previous arson and murder it begins to dawn on the rader and other characters whey and how the murders took place.

The Mozart Question by Michael Morpugo

"When Lesley is sent to Venice to interview world-renowned violinist Paulo Levi on his fiftieth birthday, she cannot believe her luck. She is told that she can ask him anything at all - except the Mozart question. But it is Paulo himself who decides that it is time for the truth to be told. And so follows the story of his parents as Jewish prisoners of war, forced to play Mozart violin concertos for the enemy; how they watched fellow Jews being led off to their deaths and knew that they were playing for their lives. As the story unfolds, the journalist begins to understand the full horror of war, and how one group of musicians survived using the only weapon they had - music."

A beautifully written book equally beautifully illustrated, which uses the musical ability of a young boy as a window into the horrors of Auschwitz where a group of musicians were spared to play chamber music to the poor creatures going to the gas chambers to keep them calm. A short great introduction to a subject too painful to broach with children but a story that must be told to stop it happening again.

Harlequin Pink: The Batchelor Prince by Debbie Macomber and Misao Itoshiai

The kind of manga I don't like: wish fulfilment for 16 year old girls, completely edgeless and fuzzy, still read it all though!

One Missed Call by Yaushi Akimoto and Mayomi Shihou

Passable horror manga in the vein of The Ring: people get missed calls from their future selves at the moment of their deaths which take place within 48 hours of the call.