2005 book 89

lev grossman's codex
well, y'all know i love those books about people researching things, so this was a pretty fun read. the main character is this young banker guy who's about to move to london for a new job, but somehow gets hired to catalog all these old books for a wealthy client. soon he's knee-deep in a search for a mysterious codex, with the help of a determined young girl grad student, who actually collates an old book at one point, to my great amusement (i learned collation in my rare books seminar). if ever a book was going to appeal to library nerds, this is it (not that all of that stuff is totally accurate, but it's still fun to see in a novel). meanwhile, he's also becoming obsessed with a mysterious computer game--could there be a connection??? actually, this book wasn't nearly as predictable as i expected, and the minor characters are pretty fleshed out and interesting too, making for a really enjoyable read. yes, i liked this book much more than i expected to--now i demand more novels where characters research things!