Overdue (The Library Trilogy, #1.5)

by Mark Lawrence

flomped

Bookshops need cats.”

The call of the blank page was, Cole thought, not unlike the cries of the gulls down by the docks where the tall ships rested at anchor, their sails billowing with potential.

nothing kills off a book like too much hype – though ironically hype’s exactly what’s needed for them to flourish. Similar deal with oxygen: too little, you die; too much, you die.

“The Exchange connects them, you see? Bookshops. Libraries great and small. Who knows where it ends? Perhaps individual bookcases in private homes also touch the Exchange. Nothing would surprise me these days. Books leak. They wander. Transported and translated by the Exchange. A gentle shuffling and reshuffling of reality. A fault in the design if you ask me … or sabotage. Jaspeth’s work, no doubt – I can’t see Irad being so careless…”

Depression – a depression, a dent, a hole from which he couldn’t find the strength to climb.

It came as little surprise when none of the three ever returned from the aisles.

… I think that everyone who ever lived is still alive in every moment of their lives, strung out through the prism of time like beads on a thread.”