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Extract

Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain. Many years later, Meggie had only to close her eyes and she could still hear it, like tiny fingers tapping on the windowpane. A dog barked somewhere in the darkness, and however often she tossed and turned Meggie couldn’t get to sleep.
The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages. ‘I’m sure it must be very comfortable sleeping with a hard, rectangular thing like that under your head,’ her father had teased, the first time he found a book under her pillow.
‘Go on, admit it, the book whispers its story to you at night.’
‘Sometimes, yes,’ Meggie had said. ‘But it only works for children.’ Which made Mo tweak her nose. Mo. Meggie had never called her father anything else.

About the book

Meggie loves stories, but her book-binding father, Mo, hasn't read aloud to her since her mother mysteriously disappeared some years ago.

When a stranger who knows her father knocks at their door, Mo is forced to reveal an extraordinary secret – when he reads aloud, words come alive, and dangerous characters step out of the pages.

Suddenly, Meggie is living the kind of adventure she has only read about in books, but this one will change her life for ever.

More than three million copies sold worldwide and released as a major motion picture in 2008.

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Press reviews

“Such breathtaking things are going to happen, you cannot even imagine. SPECTACULAR!, FABULOUS! BREATHTAKING! If you've got to read a book it's got to be this one.”

GUARDIAN

“... It is hard to avoid preciosity in books about books, but here Funke pulls off the feat with vigor ... Master translator Anthea Bell takes the German text and spins out of it vivid images and heart-stopping language that impel the reader through this adventure about narratives—a true feast for anyone who has ever been lost in a book.”

KIRKUS

Author notes

'I dedicate Inkheart to Anna, who even put The Lord of the Rings aside for a while to read it. Could anyone ask more of a daughter?'

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Rights

World English only