Living books 

For Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine a group of people/ performers memorize a book of their choice. Together they form a library collection consisting of living books. The books are passing their time in a library, walking around, talking together, reading in paper-books from the shelves, ready to be consulted by a visitor. The visitors of the library choose a book they would like to read, and the book brings its reader to a place in the library or for a walk outside, while reciting its content (and possibly valid interpretations).

The idea for this library of living books comes from Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, a future vision of a society where books are forbidden because they are considered dangerous, and that happiness must be obtained through an absence of knowledge and individual thought. The number 451 refers to the temperature at which book paper starts to burn. As books are forbidden in this society an underground community of people learn books by heart in order to preserve them for the future.

Books are read to remember and written to forget. To memorize a book, or more poetically 'to learn a book by heart', is in a way a rewriting of that book. In the process of memorizing, the reader for a moment steps into the place of the writer, or rather he/ she is becoming the book. Maybe the ability to learn a whole book by heart is relative to what book you choose, the time you invest, and perhaps your skills. But, however much or well you learn something by heart you have to keep practicing it otherwise you will forget it again. Perhaps by the time you reach the end you will have forgotten the beginning. Learning a book by heart is an ongoing activity and doing. There is nothing final or material to achieve, the practice of learning a book by heart is a continuous process of remembering and forgetting.

 Book titles 

Bartleby, de wetskopijst - Herman Melville
Faust I - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Runaway - Alice Munro
Congo - David Van Reybrouck
I am a Cat - Soseki Natsume
De man achter het raam - Gerrit Krol
Elias of het gevecht met de nachtegalen - Maurice Gilliams
Bartleby the Scrivener - Herman Melville
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
نصف العالم – غسان كنفاني
com نسيان – أحلام مستغانمي
Answered Prayers - Truman Capote
Verzamelde gedichten - Hans Faverey
Pan. Een Gedicht - Herman Gorter
Remainder - Tom McCarthy
Elskeren - Marguerite Duras
Pianolærerinnen - Elfriede Jelinek
Sataniske vers - Salman Rushdie
Thomas F's siste nedtegnelser til allmenheten - Kjell Askildsen
Crash - J.G. Ballard
Aesop's Fables - Aesop
Short Stories - Oscar Wilde
(Un)arranged marriage - Bali Rai
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Collected Poems - Michael Donaghy
Against the Forgetting: Selected Poems - Hans Faverey
Hakkepølsa - Torgny Lindgren
Λι – Νίκου Καββαδία
Οι βλαβερές συνέπειες του καπνού – Άντον Τσέχωφ
Τρυποκάρυδος – Τομ Ρόμπινς
βαθύ μπλε, σχεδόν μαύρο – Θανάσης Βαλτινός
Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot
Monsieur Songe - Robert Pinget
Rêveries du promeneur solitaire - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
La carte et le territoire - Michel Houellebecq
Méthaphysique des tubes - Amélie Nothomb
Zeepijn - Charlotte Mutsaers
Een dag in 't jaar - Herman Gorter
Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins - Milan Kundera
Mistrz i Małgorzata - Michał Bułhakow
In Nessun modo ancora - Samuel Beckett
Lessico Famigliare - Natalia Ginzburg
Il fucile da caccia - Inoue Yasushi
Se une notte d'inverno un viaggiatore - Italo Calvino
Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde - Emine Sevgi Özdamar
loslabern - Rainald Goetz
Wilgotne miejsca - Charlotte Roche
Wiedzmin- ostatnie zyczenie - Andrej Sapkowski
Opowie ci o pilocie Pirxie - Stanisław Lem
Gwiazd naszych wina - John Green
Antikristus - Friedrich Nietzsche
100% Chalice - Chalice
Hingede öö - Karl Ristikivi
Elu võimalikkusest kosmoses - Mati Unt
Hämmastav Maurice ja tema õpetatud närilised - Terry Pratchett
Ülestähendusi põranda alt - Fjodor Dostojevski
Vinterreisen - Georges Perec
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
l'Analfabeta, Racconto autobiografico - Agota Kristof
Così parlò Zarathustra. Un libro per tutti e per nessuno - Friedrich Nietzsche
Emily L. - Marguerite Duras
Confessions d'un mangeur d'opium anglais - Thomas De Quincey
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
Metamorphosis and Other Stories - Franz Kafka
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
L'Amant - Marguerite Duras
Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
Godhavn - Iben Mondrup
Aperissagumma sooq allattartunga - Hans Anthon Lynge & Jørgen Pjettursson
La vie est ailleurs - Milan Kundera
Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
La Buena Suerte - Fernando Trías de Bes Mingot & Álex Rovira Celma
If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino
Testo Yonqui - Paul B. Preciado
Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson
In the Skin of a Lion – Michael Ondaatje
Nachdenken über Christa T. - Christa Wolf
Vielleicht Esther - Katja Petrowskaja
Paloma - Friederike Mayröcker
Die Baugrube - Andrej Platonow
A Handbook of Disappointed Fate – Anne Boyer
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death – Kurt Vonnegut
A Plague of Tics - David Sedaris
Upublisert dagbok - Margit Slaatto
The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Onkel Oswald - Roald Dahl
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In the Solitude of Cotton Fields - Bernard-Marie Koltès
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Fledgling - Octavia E.Butler
Thomas L’Obscur - Maurice Blanchot
Monkey - Wu Ch’êng-ên
Un beau ténébreux - Julien Gracq
Maskava–Gailīši - Venedikts Jerofejevs
Mīļotā - Tonija Morisone
Lielais Molns - Alēns Furnjē
Murmulis, kas mīlēja klusumu - Tūve Jansone
Agnese un Tumsas valdnieks - Guntis Berelis
Mazā filosofija Berenīkei - Rolands Simons-Šēfers
Преступление и наказание - Фёдор Достоевский
표류도 - 박경리
거장과 마르가리타 - 미하일 불가코프
야간비행 - 앙투안 드 생텍쥐페리
벨기에에서 온 편지 - 채영호
Amuleto - Roberto Bolaño
La hora de la estrella - Clarice Lispector
The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde
《都柏林人》「一抹微雲」- 喬伊斯
如果這是一個人 - 普利摩. 李維
《像我這樣的一個女子》 - 西西
Kvinder uden mænd - Shahrnush Parsipur
Det store stilehefte - Agota Kristof
Sommerbogen - Tove Jansson
Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar
A Parábola do Semeador - Octavia Butler
Floresta é o nome do mundo - Ursula K. Le Guin
Ideias Para Adiar o Fim do Mundo - Ailton Krenak
Your silence will not protect you - Audre Lorde
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman
Jurnal (1941-1942) - Etty Hillesum
Vara în care mama a avut ochii verzi - Tatiana Tîbuleac
Maestrul și Margareta - Mihail Bulgakov
Frică și cutremur - Søren Kierkegaard
Un désir fou de danser - Elie Wiesel
L’enfant noir - Camara Laye
Moby-Dick ; ou, le Cachalot - Herman Melville
野人之書 雄仔叔叔
現 世 - Annie Dillard
Hörluren - Leonora Carrington
Viisi aistia yhdelle kuolemalle - Etel Adnan
Halla helle - Niillas Holmberg
마커 『북녘 사람들 - 크리스
여자짐승아시아하기 - 김혜순
판타즈마고리아 - 루이스 캐럴
The Hundred Dresses - Eleanor Estes
Dub: Finding Ceremony - Alexis Pauline Gumbs
كل هذا الهراء - عز الدين شكري فشير

 Performers 

Aaron Virdee, Adriana Gheorghe, Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Agate Bankava, Alexandra Napier, Alice Monica Marinescu, Alice Rensy, Amalie Bergstein, Andrea Maurer, Andrea Rodrigo, Angela Goh, Boing Yuen Hau-Ching, Boyong Kim, Bruno De Wachter, Brynjar Bandlien, Camilla Høg, Caroline Daish, Chloe Fisher, Choi Beumkyu, Connie.Y, David Helbich, Dmitrijs Gaitjukevics, Dolores Hulan, Ellie Law Ching Sum, Elly Clarke, Emmilou Rößling, Esperanza Gomez Carrera, Ewa Chmielewska, Freja Bäckman, Frøydis Århus, Giota Bibli, Hayeon Kim, Helena Polasik, Ida Katinka Fridan Pedersen, Ilinca Hărnuț, Irena Radmanovic, Irini Tsava, Isadora Angelini, Iulia Mărăcine, Izar Okariz, Jaanika Tammaru, Jan Kühling, Joana Ferraz, Johan Sonnenschein, Jon Refsdal Moe, Jude Joseph, Julie Pfleiderer, Justine Maxelon, Kaarel Targo, Kamil Malecki, Kaija M. Kalvet, Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz, Katarzyna Stankiewicz, Kathy Kyunghoo Lee, Katja Dreyer, Kil KyungHa, Kim Boyong, Kim Hayeon, Kong Ho Yin, Kristien Van den Brande, Kristine Øren, Kristo Veinberg, Kyungha Kil, Laura Niils, Léa Poiré, Lea Vendelbo Petersen, Lee Kyunghoo, Lihua Yu, Lilia Mestre, Lizzie Thompson, Luigi Pignati, Mara Brašmane, Mari Matre Larsen, Marit Ødegaard, Maria Psarologou, Marios Kritikopoulos, Martin Slaatto, Mette Edvardsen, Michelangelo Miccolis, Mihkel Kallaste, Mikko Hyvönen, Moqapi Selassie, Muna Mussie, Nicholas Von Kleist, Paloma Mecozzi, Pâmela Sarabia, Patricia Woods, Peteris Krilovs, Philip Holyman, Pivinnguaq Mørch, Pyun Jiji, Rasa Jansone, Rauno Polman, Razan Akramawy, Reinis Ivanovs, Rhiannon Newton, Rosemary Lee, Roza Moshtaghi, Sarah Ludi, Sara Masotti, Satu Herrala, Sébastien Hendrickx, Simon Asencio, Siriol Joyner, Sonia Si Ahmed, Staffan Eek, Stephanie Amin, Thomas Bîrzan, Tiziana Penna, Tom Engels, Trista Ma Ka Yue, Ulf Nilseng, Usama Zurba, Valdis Abols, Veridiana Zurita, Vincent Dunoyer, Violeta Gil, Wouter Krokaert, Wu King Yeung, Yun Eunkeong, …