What's real and what's not? People we meet in books--Holden Caulfield, Captain Ahab, Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter, Bilbo and Gandalf and Frodo-- can become more memorable, and more important to us than people with birth certificates and drivers' licenses. Characters spawned in an author's imagination find a home inside us. They make our lives richer. They become our best friends. They never disappoint. And they never die.