Writer Jonathan Franzen - Cover of Time Magazine

I get a lot of pleasure out of reading. I really do. But it has been many years since I deliberately read fiction for pleasure. In other words, other than reading through a few fiction pieces from the New Yorker over the years – yes, you’re right… the cartoons are the only part of the magazine that I consistently read – I have read no other fiction, relegating novels to a minor list on my fantasy retirement plan.

Then, I read the cover article about the writer Jonathan Franzen in the August 28, 2010 issue of Time Magazine, written by another writer, Lev Grossman. (His quotations from that article are shown below.)

And the article itself blew me away. It was so well written, and so enthusiastic, in a measured way, that I wanted to discover more about Lev Grossman’s own writing. So I went to Barnes & Nobel, (our main local bookstore), and purchased the Codex. I read it over three days and was thoroughly entertained! And in addition, learned some new things about early books and the early renaissance period of time in England.

- Richard Chandler