Ex Libris

A book in half a billion. The metropole is a world of data-driven design and addled market saturation. It’s a place where every decision, every movement is tracked and interpreted by the network to curate content for the comfort and containment of its citizens, where imagination and fiction are suppressed, and where books have been abandoned in favour of instant gratification. Against this backdrop, a loose gathering of subversives collects the scraps of texts left behind. Calling themselves free readers, they seek to reconstruct a library from fragments away from the watchful eye of the feared committee for public safety. But what begins as the story of four people drawn to a band of literary misfits becomes an epic quest for truth in a world of lies and a narrative conscious of its own fictions. Twelve of the chapters in this book are arranged at random, with each new copy shuffled anew, one of 479,001,600 possible variations. No two copies of Ex Libris are identical, and yet all tell the same story. ‘One of Australia’s best literary innovators.’ —David Ryding, Director, Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature Office ‘A remarkable technical achievement, and a page-turning novel that celebrates the transformative power of reading, and the magic we experience as a reader.’ —Ryan O’Neill, award-winning author of Their Brilliant Careers