THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO- Stephen Galloway

A beautiful city under siege, particularly from the snipers on the hills above it, is one of four characters in this novel - it's difficult to call it a novel, because we all saw these scenes unfold on television. How do people function from day-to-day in such times, travelling miles with water bottles around one's body, wondering what has become of one's neighbours, dreaming, if only for an instant, of things as they once were? This beautiful novel presents these questions, and the characters show us the answers. Three separate lives unfold, none of them particularly connected, except by the humanity they seek to maintain amidst such devastation.

 Lots of room here for discussion, and worth a second, more concentrated, look.