PublishedVintage Books, August 2014 |
ISBN9780804171632 |
FormatSoftcover, 464 pages |
Dimensions20.3cm × 13.8cm × 2.4cm |
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 thinks of 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.
