A book can be something of a metaphor for the human body—it has a face that can reveal itself or lie, it has a spine, it’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I also think there’s a certain poetic harmony ­between the physicality of a book and the ineffability of what it contains, like our bodies with our child selves buried alive inside, to say nothing of what we think of as consciousness somewhere in there as well.