Returns (The Library Trilogy, #1.6)

by Mark Lawrence

But once, when leafing through the volume for the fiftieth time as she rested her back against the jealousy of other books still imprisoned on the shelf, she had seen something new.

The jealousy of books not being read!

“People are like books that are loaned out with blank pages and it’s the job of the world to fill in the story. Maybe that story will get read a page here, paragraph there, a line exchanged on a doorstep with a stranger. With luck most of it will be shared with someone precious. But however many people read whatever part of it – even those who read the same pages – every one of them will come away with a different tale. And no one, save the person it’s about, will read the whole story. Secrets are no sin. They’re the vital glue that binds the narrative of our lives. Written in invisible ink, hidden in cipher, the current of mystery that makes each of us unknowable, that turns us into a question others might wish to ask.