A familiar smell hit my nostrils and I inhaled its intense pungency with surprised pleasure. We had stepped into another narrow corridor which would be invisible to anyone either inside the room or in the outer corridor. I looked around me in amazement; a thin veneer of light revealed the spines of thousands of books pressed together on countless rows of wooden shelves. They coiled around the circular walls of the corridor like the ribbed back of a serpent, and were stacked on both sides, from the floor upwards to the very top of the leaning arch of the cupola. Incredulity robbed me of my voice. I ran my hand along a line of leatherbound books as if they were notes on a keyboard and shuddered. Each one was a death sentence. But at that moment I didn't care. 'Welcome to the library' Homer said, a ring of triumph in his voice. I walked away from him, wordless in a word-full sea. I stared along the shelves, overwhelmed by a new hunger that came from a famine I did not even know that I had endured.