The following extract from Jasper Fforde’s fantasy novel Lost in a Good Book, formed part of last week’s HSC English Standard and Advanced examinations. Sixty-seven thousand students were asked to read this passage and then answer the following question: Analyse how Fforde captures the narrator’s experience of awe and wonder. I loved the extract and found myself immediately immersed in its beautiful depiction of a mysterious library housing precious books. How good would it be if libraries today could return to these quiet and sacred spaces where magnificent treasures – gifts of awe and wonder in the form of books – were carefully cradled and brought to life. Fantasy?

‘I was in a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor lined with bookshelves that reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was elegantly patterned and the ceiling was decorated with rich mouldings that depicted scenes from the classics, each cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above me, spaced at regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures through which light gained entry and reflected off the polished wood, reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running down the centre of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a green-shaded brass lamp. The library appeared endless; in both directions the corridor vanished into darkness with no definable end. But this wasn’t important. Describing the library would be like going to see a Turner and commenting on the frame. On all the walls, end after end, shelf after shelf, were books. Hundreds, thousands, millions of books. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound volumes, uncorrected proofs, handwritten manuscripts, everything. I stepped closer and rested my fingertips lightly on the pristine volumes. They felt warm to the touch, so I leaned closer and pressed my ear to the spines. I could hear a distant hum, the rumble of machinery, people talking, traffic, seagulls, laughter, waves on rocks, wind in the winter branches of trees, distant thunder, heavy rain, children playing, a blacksmith’s hammer – a million sounds all happening together. And then, in a revelatory moment, the clouds slid back from my mind and a crystal-clear understanding of the very nature of books shone upon me. They weren’t just collections of words arranged neatly on a page to give the impression of reality – each of these volumes was reality. The similarity of these books to the copies I had read back home was no more than the similarity a photograph has to its subject – these books were alive!’