The Name of This Book Is Secret (Secret, #1)

by Pseudonymous Bosch

And, make no bones about it, this is a very dangerous book. No, it won’t blow up in your face. Or bite your head off. Or tear you limb from limb. It probably won’t injure you at all. Unless somebody throws it at you, which is a possibility that should never be discounted. Generally speaking, books don’t cause much harm. Except when you read them, that is. Then they cause all kinds of problems. Books can, for example, give you ideas. I don’t know if you’ve ever had an idea before, but, if you have, you know how much trouble an idea can get you into. Books can also provoke emotions. And emotions sometimes are even more troublesome than ideas. Emotions have led people to do all sorts of things they later regret—like, oh, throwing a book at someone else.

So many subjects you study in school prove unnecessary in life: for math, there is always a calculator. For English, there is always spell-check. For history, there is always the encyclopedia. Why should you hold so much knowledge in your head when it is stored right in front of you?

One dictionary defines denouement as “a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain.” By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the word sounds so sophisticated and French.

P. B.

Ah shoot, how many years later do i realize that Pietro Bergamo and Pseudonymous Bosch have the same initials