AN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF UNIQUE BOOKS

What is The Library of the Dead? It’s the next anthology by Written Backwards.

Imagine a cathedral-like building set on the west coast of California, where the rich and famous have been buried for generations, as well as the surrounding area’s infamous citizens. Imagine walking into the building, expecting a church, but instead you find yourself within a maze of corridors and small, oddly shaped rooms. In each of these rooms are rows upon rows of golden books, filling shelves from floor to ceiling. And it takes your breath away. A secret library.

But this isn’t a library at all (well, it is, of sorts, just not like any you have ever seen), and the countless golden volumes within are not even books, but funeral urns filled with the ashes of the dead. Side-by-side they wait to be opened, like hardcover novels. On the spines of these “books” are names of the deceased and dates they’d lived carved in intricate script.

You find yourself lost in this labyrinth. You walk the endless rows and read the names. You could easily reach up and slide a “book” from its shelf to take a closer look, but perhaps something keeps you from doing such a thing. These are the dead, and you must respect them. The names on these books are people you have admired over the years, names like Brian Keene, and Gene O’Neill, and wait… some of these names you may not recognize, but should. There are countless golden books/urns, but perhaps you only have time to pull down a dozen to see what they hold… or perhaps a few more.

Somewhere roaming the quiet hallways in this glorious building, this Library of the Dead, is a librarian. He waits until dark to show you around, to perhaps pull down a few of these “books,” to read to you the stories of the lives and deaths of those he watches over.

Coming this fall.