Saturday Rave: The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones.

It was the over-the-hills-and-far-away thing that made me love books to begin with. In many ways it still is.

What's over the hill? What's below the horizon? Is there something there that's beautiful, something that's thrilling, someone who'll love me?

And with a book you can go even further than that: under the sea, over the trees...even the sky isn't the limit. In Diana Wynne Jones's The Homeward Bounders there are worlds beyond worlds, more than you can count or imagine.

Jamie Hamilton has been caught up by some vast and unfathomable force and it is sending him from one world to another to another to another. It's hard enough surviving alone in one strange world without having to do it over and over again.

But it turns out that Jamie isn't the only Homeward Bounder. He meets others; and some of them know more about what's going on.

He discovers that in order to be safe, in order to get home, the players of the vast game of chance in which he has been swept up have to be destroyed.

The Homeward Bounders is exciting, funny, and sad. It's full of extraordinary things, but at the same time it's very down to earth.

It's a brilliant book for anyone who's ever felt lonely, too.

Word To Use Today: bound. The word which means on the way to somewhere comes from the Old Norse buinn, from būa, to prepare.