My teacher always told me that in order to save a patient you’d have to kill him first. Not the most child-friendly way of explaining his theory of book restoration to his eight-year-old apprentice, but it worked. I grew up determined to save them all.

As I studied the faded, brittle, leather-bound volume that lay near death on the worktable before me, I knew I could bring it back to life, too. But it wouldn’t be easy. With six hundred pages of crusty, smelly pulp, the book’s once-elegant, gilded spine was nearly severed from its body.

“Sorry, old thing, but I’m not letting you die on my watch.” I dusted its hinges with a soft brush, then ran a finger along the spine. It came away covered in red powder. Red rot had set in. The leather binding was terminal.

I picked up my scalpel and pierced the frail calfskin along the aged brown hinge, extricating the bits of thready sinew still clinging to the sticky bits of leather.

Despite my mother’s misgivings, I was grateful I’d bypassed medical school, because let’s face it, if this book were human, I’d be drenched in blood up to my elbows and probably unconscious. I didn’t do so well around blood.

I heard a sharp intake of breath. “That’s disgusting!”

I flinched and the scalpel flew from my hand. I looked up and saw my best friend, Robin Tully, staring at the flaky leather chunks and moldy paper splayed across the table.