#8: Find the Codex Seraphinianus 

My favorite book in the world is an encyclopedia of things which don’t exist.  The Codex Seriphinianus creates the trappings of a reference text in stunning detail—charts, graphs, categories, chapters, page numbers—but describes strange, bewildering and beautiful phenomenon not native to our world.  It is written in a curvilinear script with no known translation; the language may or not be meaningful, but researchers recently cracked its base-21 numbering system.

A picture of the Codex in my lap on the library floor

I first encountered the Codex during a college visit to an art library.  We were told to browse and report on random selections.  I received the Codex, and in some ways I’ve never put it down again, but I haven’t held a copy in years.  For my eighth adventure, I found it in the Boston Public Library.

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