the books were beside themselves with loathing. They longed for human hands, for human touch. They bristled with ire at the indignity of their situation as they were spun, flipped, rotated, scanned, sorted, sent sliding down rackety gravity chutes into bins or hoisted hydraulically onto trolleys. It was more than any book could bear, and their lamentations rose above the clamor of the machines—We are not units! We, who once were sacred, next to God! The sound of their heartbreak was almost human.
