[frostschutz]

This parsing and stuff is done by an instance of /usr/local/Kobo/adobehost(-launcher.sh), it has three modes (reader, parser, search). That's probably your fd 35. You might get a more complete picture if you kill adobehost first (nickel re-starts it as needed) and then strace -ff nickel.

Interesting idea with the browser.

Modifying the database: dunno if it works for books, it does not for collections, nickel does not re-read until it leaves USB host mode. For the books table I know it changes rowIDs of books around a lot (basically everytime you open a book it gets a new rowID) and I don't know what assumptions nickel makes about those so... I'd rather not risk it.