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Today, the magic book.

I'm Anne Strange Champs. There's something magical about any book, but some pack a really potent aura of mystery.

A few weeks ago, a big box came to our office, and inside was a book, a huge book, like 14 by 20 inches and heavy, weighed about 10 pounds.

When we opened it, we found pages filled with bizarre illustrations and calligraphy that seemed to be in some kind of made-up language.

Well, everyone here got really excited about this book.

We all wanted to touch it, borrow it, talk about it.

It kind of felt like magic.

So this book is called the Codex Seraphanianus.

And to crack the code and get to the bottom of it,

Charles Monroe Kane called the guy who published it,

Charles Mears from Rezoli Press.

Can you, and this probably be the hardest thing you'll do all day, can you describe this book?

That is the hardest thing I'll do all day.

You know, it's a fantasy with illustrations and calligraphy, following the structure of an atlas or a travel book

from the 17th or 18th century, I would say, some reference to illuminated manuscripts. And it's

difficult to interpret, but wonderful to experience. And it bounces, I guess,

between sort of references to a distant past and explorations of a distant future. How's that for a

mouthful? That was a big mouthful. I think there's a couple words that I'll think need to go in there.

One, it is surreal.

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