The people who visit the Book are perplexed, or obsessed, or desperate, and sometimes they're all three. They Need To Know. And if you Need To Know, well... it's maddening to think that somewhere below your feet lies the Clockwork Book in the midst of its bookmaking machinery, calmly annotating the very thing you're after. This thought preys on your mind until, one day, you slip down the quiet street where a hatch opens onto a shaft that leads far below the city to a tunnel, at the end of which lies the Book.

The Book accumulates stories. It does this by trading the stories it knows for new stories. This sounds harmless: in fact, it sounds beneficial, until you think about it.

Because stories are not neutral. Stories always say something about the person who tells them.