[99% spoiler-free; I have trouble with spilling spoilers, so I'm working hard not to do it this time]

I got so crazy about this series that I not only ordered vol. 3 (this one) from Germany to find out how it ended, I even ordered the audio book and put it on my iPod so I could obsess about it repeatedly.

The cover blurb says, "Der Verlag übernimmt keine Haftung für eventuell verloren gegangene Personen." ("The publishers assume no responsibility for readers who disappear," essentially. It's all about getting lost in books. . .this time more literally than usual. They can laugh all they want. It happens.)

Incredible! I mean, what's not to like. It's a narrative about bibliophilia. Not just the stories out of books, which play a big role, especially in Vol. 1. . .but also, all the physical trappings of books. (The main adult point-of-view character is a bookbinder; secondary adult point-of-view characters are an author and a book collector; minor characters include a handful of book illuminators. If you Google for character names you find out that a handful of them are names of early scribes from St. Gallen. For a medievalist like me this is a delightful Easter egg, and it's hardly the only one.) Each chapter begins with a quotation from a book (the citations chosen vary interestingly between the English and German versions of Vols. 1 & 2 [and presumably will also in Vol. 3 -- the English version is due later this year], though they are probably 75% matches; I wouldn't be surprised if Funke picked the English set as well -- she's clearly a big Anglophile). The range of the quotes is impressive, from (in the German version) Mark Twain to Paul Celan to C. S. Lewis to Matthias Claudius to J. M. Barrie to Salman Rushdie to Umberto Eco to Schiller (_Die Räuber_ of course. There are marvelous robbers in the story, with all of the same conflicting agendas as the ones in Schiller*) and a host of others. *There's a definite kinship to the robbers in Astrid Lindgren, too.

The themes are Big: social justice for the downtrodden; families with all their complications (most of the characters are on the moody/passionate side; misunderstanding between close kin happens repeatedly); self-sacrifice to save others weaker than oneself; the meaning death gives to life. (Funke's husband Rolf was dying of cancer as she wrote Tintentod, and it shows. In a good way.)

Many readers' favorite character is Staubfinger (Dustfinger), the "fire-dancer" street performer who thinks he has no courage; but mine is Mortimer, the bookbinder, whose innocent heart (his symbol isn't a unicorn by accident) and empathy for the oppressed takes him into mortal danger multiple times (I can count five times from this volume without even thinking hard). Okay, there's a bit of "mild-mannered Clark Kent" going on here, but it's a nice archetype; and Mortimer's hero alter-ego, and what he finds he is capable of, will take your breath away. (I can't remember the last time I _forgot to breathe_ while reading.)

As one of the other reviewers says,

Dude.

I'll even say Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

What are they called in English? Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath.

What are they called in German? Inkheart, Inkblood, Inkdeath.

Go figure. It's another Sorcerer's Stone, as I figure it.

But don't let that get in your way. Read 'em.