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Published Aug 2014
448 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A gorgeously unique, fully illustrated exploration into the phenomenology of reading - how we visualize images from reading works of literature, from one of our very best book jacket designers, himself a passionate reader.
What do we see when we read? Did Tolstoy really describe Anna Karenina? Did Melville ever really tell us what, exactly, Ishmael looked like? The collection of fragmented images on a page - a graceful ear there, a stray curl, a hat positioned just so - and other clues and signifiers helps us to create an image of a character. But in fact our sense that we know a character intimately has little to do with our ability to concretely picture our beloved - or reviled - literary figures.
In this remarkable work of nonfiction, Knopf's Associate Art Director Peter Mendelsund combines his profession, as an award-winning designer; his first career, as a classically trained pianist; and his first love, literature - he considers himself first and foremost as a reader - into what is sure to be one of the most provocative and unusual investigations into how we understand the act of reading.
"Starred Review. In this brilliant amalgam of philosophy, psychology, literary theory and visual art [Mendelsund] inquires about the complex process of reading... [he] amply attains his goal to produce a quirky, fresh and altogether delightful meditation on the miraculous act of reading. - Kirkus
"Offhandedly brilliant, witty, and fluent in the works of Tolstoy, Melville, Joyce, and Woolf, Mendelsund guides us through an intricate and enlivening analysis of why literature and reading are essential to our understanding of ourselves, each
other, and the spinning world." - Booklist
"Brilliant. Peter Mendelsund has peered into our messy heads and produced an illuminating, kaleidoscopic meditation on reading. Also on seeing. And understanding." - Jim Gleick, bestselling author of The Information
"Peter Mendelsund is to the art of book design what Walter Murch is to the art of film-editing. That, of course, is the highest praise imaginable." - Geoff Dyer, author of Another Great Day at Sea
"This examination of how words on a page become pictures in our brains is blowing my mind a little in the best possible way." - BookRiot
"Wow... It's so smart, so totally original, so beautiful. This is the perfect gift for anyone who has ever blinked awake inside a book." - Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!
"This is not a book, this is a sacred text. It inspires, it expands the mind, it proves that Mendelsund is a total freaking genius." - Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers
"Amazing... Sparkling with verbal as well as visual wit and the personable exhilaration of one of the best conversations you've ever had, What We See When We Read opens one's eyes to that special brand of blindness which makes the vividness of fiction possible." - Chris Ware, author of Building Stories
This information about What We See When We Read was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Mendelsund is the associate art director of Alfred A. Knopf and a recovering classical pianist. His designs have been described by The Wall Street Journal as being "the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction." He lives in New York.
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