You Have to Unlock This Book to Read It

Puzzles commonly pop up in books. From Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to the meaning behind "redrum" in Stephen King's The Shining, puzzles make things interesting.

However, those puzzles are normally mental games not actual physical puzzles.

[Image Courtesy of Brady Whitney/Kickstarter]

Industrial designer Brady Whitney created the Codex Silenda. The wooden book includes pages to unlock, and you can only read the contents by solving different puzzles on each page. There are only five pages in each book, so it's not like you're trying to read all of Moby Dick like this.

The Iowa State University graduate developed the project for his senior thesis. He then turned the idea into an extremely popular and well-funded Kickstarter. He used laser cutting to design and shape each 1/4 in piece of wood, perfectly weaving them together to create each puzzle.

[Image Courtesy of Brady Whitney/Kickstarter]

What's the plot? Is it even worth unlocking all those puzzles? We think so. The story fits perfectly with the book's aesthetic as readers learn about a young apprentice of Da Vinci. However, the story can be personalized for anyone. (So, if you're wanting to propose to a certain bibliophile in your life, this might be the way to go about it.)

[Image Courtesy of Brady Whitney/Kickstarter]

You can still visit the Kickstarter shop, but the site redirects you to the new Codex Silenda website. There, you can put yourself on a waiting list for a book of your own or email Whitney himself with any questions you might have.

[Image Courtesy of Brady Whitney/Kickstarter]

Whitney's website bio says he just wanted to create "the products and ideas he always wished he had as a kid."

You can watch Whitney talk about creating an affordable yet complex puzzle in the video below:

Via Codex Silenda

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