What We See When We Read: A Phenomenology With Illustrations

**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.

"A playful, illustrated treatise on how words give rise to mental images." -*The New York Times***
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.