1. If you were to file a codex vitae, capturing all you've learned throughout your life, what would it contain?
2. At the heart of the novel is the collision of old-world handwork and the automated digital age. How do Clay and Mat build a bridge between these two worlds?
3. What were your initial theories about the bookstore's mysterious patrons and their project? What did you predict Manutius's message would be?
4. The characters remind us that fifteenth-century technologies of the book - from the punch - cutting to typesetting - were met with fear and resistance, as well as with entrepreneurial competition and the need to teach new skills. How does this compare to the launch of e-books? If you try to picture what literacy will look like five hundred years from now, what do you see?
5. Clay grapples with the fact that e-books could make brick-and-mortar bookstores unnecessary? How have your community's bookstores fared in recent years? Did the novel reassure you about the role of technology in the lives of book lovers?
2. At the heart of the novel is the collision of old-world handwork and the automated digital age. How do Clay and Mat build a bridge between these two worlds?
3. What were your initial theories about the bookstore's mysterious patrons and their project? What did you predict Manutius's message would be?
4. The characters remind us that fifteenth-century technologies of the book - from the punch - cutting to typesetting - were met with fear and resistance, as well as with entrepreneurial competition and the need to teach new skills. How does this compare to the launch of e-books? If you try to picture what literacy will look like five hundred years from now, what do you see?
5. Clay grapples with the fact that e-books could make brick-and-mortar bookstores unnecessary? How have your community's bookstores fared in recent years? Did the novel reassure you about the role of technology in the lives of book lovers?