The Second Reader

What it looks like, and what it does

An open library book on a table. A pencil line in the margin beside a paragraph, a short note in a slanting hand. An empty chair opposite with a pencil laid across the seat. Shelves in warm lamplight.

Writes only while the book is being read. Prefers short notes. Leaves a faint pencil line under a word to say it was listening.

What is known

Annotations appear in books borrowed from the Hallam Reading Room. They answer the reader's thoughts rather than the text: “No, you've missed it here.” “You already know the answer.”

Readers have compared the hand to their own. A few say it looks familiar. Others say it looks like a teacher's. The notes never repeat. The staff cannot rub them out: the pencil is the same grade as theirs.

What it can do

• Annotates books in response to the reader's unspoken thoughts
• Writes in a hand each reader half-recognises

Where it stops

• Does not annotate books read aloud
• Does not write in ink

An encounter

Crane found a note in a novel in the margin of a page she was reading: “You're not going to finish this one.” She was not. She returned the book at the desk, and the next reader found, on the same page, a different note: “She's right. Try the other one.”

Edith Crane, librarian, Hallam Reading Room, table 6, A wet afternoon

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Sixty-one books carry annotations that were not present at the previous loan.
• incomplete: Handwriting experts disagree on whether the hands are one or many.
• rumor: That the pencil is warm for a minute after a note appears.

Still unresolved

The notes in one volume, read in order, form a letter addressed to whoever borrows it next.

Where it has been recorded

• The Hallam Reading Room (confirmed) — Recorded by Edith Crane, librarian.

Connected entities

• The Tidy Voice — Both annotate the record, one in captions and one in margins. Neither has been seen to be wrong about the reader.