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Synopsis from Amazon

Panina Manina, a trapeze artist, falls and breaks her neck. As the ringmaster bends over her, he notices an amulet of amber around her neck, the same trinket he had given his own lost child, who was swept away in a torrent some sixteen years earlier. This tale is narrated by Petter, a precocious child and fantasist, and perhaps Jostein Gaarder’s most intriguing character since Sophie. As an adult, Petter makes his living selling stories and ideas to professionals suffering from writer’s block. But as Petter sits spinning his tales, he finds himself in a trap of his own making.

I recieved this book through the post as part of a bookring and wasn’t too sure if I’d like it as I have started Sophie’s World on several occassions and never managed to finish it. However within a page of reading this I was hooked. Petter, is a child with an amazing imagination and intelligence, he is continuously imagining new stories, how wonderful it would be if there were more children like this around.

The book features the story of Petter’s life as well as a number of the stories that he invents, some of them the same story told with a different slant on it as he gets older.

One of my favourite reads of the year so far, I will have to dig out my other books by Gaarder and give them a go.