Great Big Book of Everything: Difference between revisions

Line 97:

* ''The Book of Three'' from The ''[[Prydain Chronicles]]'' (also the name of the first book of the series) serves this purpose, being the chronicled [[Rule of Three|Past, Present, and Future]] of Prydain. It was once referred to as the "Book of If" by [[Eccentric Mentor|Dallben]], who mentioned that the prophecies in the book could easily have not occurred. Oh, and it has magic smiting powers to keep away the unworthy.

* In ''[[The Girl Who Owned a City]]'', Lisa is stated to be guided by a "great book," which gives her most of her ideas on how to run things her [[Cozy Catastrophe|post-Apocalyptic]] kid enclave. The book is implied to be ''[[Atlas Shrugged]].''

* ''[http://www.annecoale.com/web4pics/bookofsand.pdf The Book of Sand]'' by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story about the titular book, so named because "neither sand nor this book has a beginning or end". The book is of unknown origin and has seemingly infinite pages, which are numbered non-consecutively with arbitrarily large numbers; one page number was mentioned as being a number raised to the ninth power. There is no way to find a particular page a second time (although it's not specified whether or not the protagonist tried using bookmarks). The actual content of the book's text is unknown, as it's written in an unknown language; but there are simple illustrations every 2000 pages, which the protagonist quickly fills up a notebook recording. It is impossible to find the first page or the last, as new pages seem to spring up between the cover and the reader's finger whenever he tries. When the protagonist becomes obsessed with the book and determines to be rid of it, he considers burning it, but is afraid that the burning of an infinite book would itself be infinite and would cover the world in smoke, so he instead decides to hide a leaf in a forest by tucking the Book away deep within the National Library.

* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140611075234/http://www.annecoale.com/web4pics/bookofsand.pdf The Book of Sand]'' by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story about the titular book, so named because "neither sand nor this book has a beginning or end". The book is of unknown origin and has seemingly infinite pages, which are numbered non-consecutively with arbitrarily large numbers; one page number was mentioned as being a number raised to the ninth power. There is no way to find a particular page a second time (although it's not specified whether or not the protagonist tried using bookmarks). The actual content of the book's text is unknown, as it's written in an unknown language; but there are simple illustrations every 2000 pages, which the protagonist quickly fills up a notebook recording. It is impossible to find the first page or the last, as new pages seem to spring up between the cover and the reader's finger whenever he tries. When the protagonist becomes obsessed with the book and determines to be rid of it, he considers burning it, but is afraid that the burning of an infinite book would itself be infinite and would cover the world in smoke, so he instead decides to hide a leaf in a forest by tucking the Book away deep within the National Library.

* [[Tom Holt]]'s ''May Contain Traces of Magic'' features a Book of Human Knowledge which is mass-produced by the sorcerous corporation J.W. Wells and co. However, the book only shows the viewer what he or she ''needs'' to know at the time, not what that person specifically wants to look up, unless you know the cheat codes.

* In James Stoddard's ''The High House'', the Book of Forgotten Things. Just everything you've ever forgotten.