Thirst Makers
A novel about persuasion, truth, and the price of words.
Tomás Alcázar is the most awarded advertising man in the Spanish language, and he has one commission left: to teach a machine how to lie. To train it he must work through the entire history of human persuasion, document by document.
While he does, someone begins pushing photocopies of his own youthful notebooks under his door, underlined in a hand that is not his.
Why this exists
Most people didn't stop reading. They stopped finishing what they start.
Almost nobody abandons a book because it's bad. They abandon it because they started it on the sofa on a Sunday and never found that gap again. Because you can't hold a hardback with one hand on the bus. Because the text was too small, or the file too heavy, or because coming back they'd lost their place.
None of that has anything to do with wanting to read. It has to do with where and when reading actually happens now: standing up, in twenty-minute journeys, on a six-inch screen.
This library is built for that moment. The books are complete, free, and made to be read in pieces without losing the thread.
Built for the bus
Real page turns
Swipe, or tap the edge of the screen. No endless scroll losing your line at every stop.
Text up to 200%
The book repaginates itself. Raise the size as far as you need: nothing is ever cut off.
Four colour modes
Light, sepia, dark, and high contrast in yellow on black for low vision.
Read aloud
Using the voice already on your phone. The book becomes an audiobook and turns its own pages.
Remembers your place
Close it whenever, even if a call comes in. It reopens at the chapter you left.
Works without data
The whole book weighs what a photo does. Once open, it reads with no signal at all.
For teachers, schools and libraries
Yes, you can use it in class. No need to write and ask permission.
You are authorised, in advance and with no paperwork, to:
- Print and photocopy it, whole or by chapters
- Project it and read it aloud in class
- Upload it to your virtual classroom or school intranet
- Set it as required or optional reading
- Hand out the link and the QR code anywhere you like
- Add it to the library catalogue
The only things you can't do are sell it or publish modified versions. Just credit the author.
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licenceOn content: the novel is about advertising, manipulation and honesty. It contains no explicit violence and no sex. Suitable from age 15 up, and it works particularly well in ethics, communication, philosophy, language and media classes.
Spread it
A book nobody passes to anybody is a book that doesn't exist.
Here is everything you need to hand it out: the code, the texts and a poster to print. Take it and use it without asking.
I wrote a novel to be read on the bus. A man who made his living convincing people starts getting his own old notebooks back, one page at a time. Three hours. Free, complete, and it works underground. https://libros-para-pensar.netlify.app
A complete, free novel built to be read on a phone: real page turns, text up to 200%, read-aloud, and it works with no data. Free to use in class. https://libros-para-pensar.netlify.app
Catalogue
Thirst Makers The man who taught the world to want gets his own youthful notebook back — and discovers that the one form of persuasion he has never tried is the truth.About this library
There will be more books here. I don't know how many or when: I write at night, after work, and the first one took me months. What I can tell you is the terms they will come out on, because that part doesn't depend on inspiration.
Complete. Free. From day one. No sample chapter that stops just as it gets interesting, no sign-up, no advertising.
If you want to know when the next one appears, the simplest thing is to bookmark this page. There is no mailing list. If there ever is one, it will be to announce a new book and nothing else.
Dawin Salazar