By Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean and published by Bloomsbury

On Monday i will be seeing Neil Gaiman in conversation with Phillip Pullman- so what better to do until then than read some of his books?

Nobody Owens (or Bod, for short) survived a murder on his family by escaping from his cot when he was just  baby. He crawled into the graveyard up the road, and was found by the ghosts occupying it. He was renamed as Nobody and accepted into the graveyard. The story focuses on Bod as he grows up learning the tricks of the trades to being a ghost: learning their abilities yet being alive. Soon he ventures out of the graveyard in the search to buy a headstone for his dead friend… but soon, the man Jack who had murdered his family years ago has come back to finish Bod off! Where can Bod go for help? How can he escape Jack’s clutches again? Read this amazing novel to discover the truth!

I’ve had this book lying on my bookshelf for a while now, and found it again a few days ago when i was hunting for my Neil Gaiman books (M is for Magic&Coraline -reviews up soon) to re-read before i saw the author at the event on Monday. But why had i missed out this book? It was brilliant! As Garth Nix quoted on the back of my copy, it really is the kind of book you wish you had discovered earlier in your life so you can read it over and over again, and that you wish you had written yourself because of it being an unmistakable masterpiece.

I love how Neil Gaiman perfectly tells this story of horror, crime and fantasy as a book perfect for children to curl up with. It has it’s heart warming parts and it’s terrifyingly chilling parts. It covers the topics of Friendship and Hope, entwining them with a gripping and spooky story-line.

I I would definitely recommend this to children and young teens, but i’m sure adults would love this too!