Chris Urie

Readers are detectives. Why else would they bother reading?

Each time you pick up a book, you’re looking for something. You might leaf through a Lonely Planet guide to find the best hostels in the Leblon neighborhood of Rio De Janeiro or caress the pages of a book by Murakami to find some meaning in the little details filling out their, and your, world. Hell, we all know you’ve picked up some schlocky paperback just to find some entertainment. (For the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with paperback genre fiction. A good thriller by Michael Chricton or Matthew Reilly is nothing to scoff at!)

Readers are curious by nature. They want to look in all the nooks and crannies between the ink and pages. The characters present and enigma begging to be unwrapped. The plot is a string of events just waiting to be uncovered. A good story unfolds like a paleontologist brushing off a dinosaur bit by bit. They first find the fossil by poking around and asking people where they might find something. Once they catch a glimpse of fossilized bone, then, little by little, more and more of it starts to make sense. When all of it is revealed, you’re left with something very much new, intriguing, and satisfying.

A book is a fossilized dinosaur made of glue, bits of paper, and ink.