There they were, the Dreaming Books. That was what the inhabitants of this city called antiquarian books because, from the dealers’ perspective, they were neither truly alive nor truly dead but located in an intermediate limbo akin to sleep. With their existence proper behind them and the prospect of decay ahead, millions of them slumbered in the bookcases, cellars and catacombs of Bookholm. Only when one of them was picked up and opened, only when it was borne off, could it awaken to new life