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About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hot-shot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. When asked to uncrate and organize a personal library of rare books, Edward's indignation turns to intrigue as he realizes that there may be a unique medieval codex hidden among the volumes, a treasure kept locked away for many years and for many reasons. As friends draw Edward into a peculiar and addictive computer game, his obsession deepens as he discovers surprising parallels between the game's virtual reality and the mystery of the codex. An accomplished and entertaining thriller, Codex explores the mysterious power of books in the medieval and modern ages.
"Codex takes its place on the shelf of self-referential, bibliophilic page turners like The Name of the Rose, Possession and A Case of Curiosities, and it's as entertaining as any of them." - New York Times
"...well-orchestrated... intelligent [and] enjoyable" - Publishers Weekly
"Alluring and meticulous. Replete with a sexy duchess, a jaded academic ... and a shadowy programmer." - Entertainment Weekly
"A genuine treat with its sneaky plot and richly-textured storytelling. Moves so fast you won't realize how smart it is." - San Francisco Journal
"A wealth of diverting book lore and fanciful arcana conveyed in engaging, accessible prose helps to make this an engrossing, if ultimately unsatisfying, read." - Library Journal
"As in cyberfantasy, there are side trips and narrow escapes and dwarfish types with helpful tips, and if Time book critic Grossman weren't so smooth and dry, one might think about hitting esc. Sophisticated, scholarly fun and games." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Codex was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Lev Grossman - Elena Siebert
Lev Grossman is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy—The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land—which has been published in thirty countries and adapted as a TV show that ran for five seasons on SYFY. He is also a screenwriter and the author of two children's books, The Golden Swift and The Silver Arrow, and his journalism has appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, among many other places. He lives with his wife and children in New York City.
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