by Paulo Coelho
The Desert Fathers translated with an introduction by Benedicta Ward (Penguin Books, 2003). Copyright © Benedicta Ward, 2003. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
The Bhagavad Gita translated with an introduction by Juan Mascaró (Penguin Classics, 1962). Copyright © Juan Mascaró, 1962. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes (Penguin Books, 2004). Copyright © Geza Vermes, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1975, 1995, 1997, 2004. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, translated by Joachim Neugroschel, copyright © 2000 by Joachim Neugroschel. Used by permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Spiritual Verses by Rumi, translated by Alan Williams (Penguin Books, 2006). Translation copyright © Alan Williams, 2006. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Poems translated by William Radice (Penguin, 1985). Copyright © William Radice, 1985. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Every effort has been made to trace and contact the copyright-holders prior to publication. If notified, the publisher undertakes to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.
* The original manuscript has neither numbers nor capital letters; punctuation is limited to the comma and the period. Those two marks, the space and the twenty-two letters of the alphabet are the twenty-five sufficient symbols that our unknown author is referring to. [Ed. note.]
* In earlier times, there was one man for every three hexagons. Suicide and diseases of the lung have played havoc with that proportion. An unspeakably melancholy memory: I have sometimes travelled for nights on end, down corridors and polished staircases, without coming across a single librarian.
* I repeat: In order for a book to exist, it is sufficient that it be possible. Only the impossible is excluded. For example, no book is also a staircase, though there are no doubt books that discuss and deny and prove that possibility, and others whose structure corresponds to that of a staircase.
* Letizia Alvarez de Toledo has observed that the vast Library is pointless; strictly speaking, all that is required is a single volume, of the common size, printed in nine- or ten-point type, that would consist of an infinite number of infinitely thin pages. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri stated that every solid body is the superposition of an infinite number of planes.) Using that silken vademecum would not be easy: each apparent page would open into other similar pages; the inconceivable middle page would have no ‘back’.
