How does this theme unfold during the course of the story? One of the novel's central ideas is that we are our stories. What is the role each symbol plays in the book and what does each signify, or represent? Three of the book's most prominent symbols, in a book full of them, are a sword, a key, and a bee.

How would you describe the library to someone who has never read the book? Talk about the underground realm of the Starless Sea. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose-in both the mysterious book and in his own life. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians-it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead.

Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues-a bee, a key, and a sword-that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. New York Times bestseller Named a best book of the year by The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, Real Simple, and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world-a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.

Book the starless sea