Salamander

Nicholas Flood, an unassuming eighteenth-century London printer, specializes in novelty books -- books that nestle into one another, books comprised of one spare sentence, books that emit the sounds of crashing waves. When his work captures the attention of an eccentric Slovakian count, Flood is summoned to a faraway castle -- a moving labyrinth that embodies the count's obsession with puzzles -- where he is commissioned to create the infinite book, the ultimate never-ending story. Probing the nature of books, the human thirst for knowledge, and the pursuit of immortality,Salamandercareens through myth and metaphor as Flood travels the globe in search of materials for the elusive book without end.

Thomas Wharton's first novel, Icefields, won the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book Award and the Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize. It is available from Washington Square Press. Wharton lives in Edmonton, Canada, with his wife and children.