These are some of the books I encountered in my dream visit to the Library of Babel1. In the dream I had a superpower, only it seemed that I must have encountered a trace of Kryptonite and the books I found were somewhat altered in a dreamlike way.
Celsius 233
The metric system version of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel. Regarded as belonging to the genre of science fiction but the topic has more in common with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or George Orwell’s 1984.
22,333 Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo2 seems to have travelled a little further with this version in the Library of Babel. And he has reached a distance measured with the magic number of 22333! That can’t be a coincidence.3
The 23 Steps
The British Empire has shrunk since John Buchan wrote his ripping yarn4 set in pre WWI England. The Brit's don’t need such a big staircase these days, especially after Brexit.
The Voyage of the Beagle
Charles Darwin’s the Voyage of the Beagle5, only I was surprised to find that this book was about a dog who found his way back to his owners in a story reminiscent of Eric Knight’s tearjerker Lassie Come Home.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Explict]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs only this version seemed to be a rather risqué tale about polyamory.
The Sturgeon of Cowthorpe
I picked up this book thinking it must be a manual on pisciculture and caviar production on Berkshire. Only it turned out to be the tale of an unfortunate philologist and inmate of mental hospitals who contributed to the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Have You Been to The Library of Babel?
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See page on interesting numbers (coming soon)
The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin was published in 1839. It described the circumnavigation of the globe on which Darwin made many observations which were crucial in him developing the theory of evolution.
The Beagle left England on 27 December 1831. While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five. - See more on Amazon