What We See When We Read

A San Francisco Chronicle and Kirkus Best Book of the Year

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.

Due to the visual nature of this book, its contents may not be viewable on all devices.

“In this brilliant amalgam of philosophy, psychology, literary theory and visual art, Knopf associate art director and cover designer Mendelsund inquires about the complex process of reading. . . . The book exemplifies the idea that reading is not a linear process. Even if readers follow consecutive words, they incorporate into reading memories, distractions, predispositions, desires and expectations. . . . In 19 brief, zesty chapters, the author considers such topics as the relationship of reading to time, skill, visual acuity, fantasy, synesthesia and belief. . . . Mendelsund amply attains his goal to produce a quirky, fresh and altogether delightful meditation on the miraculous act of reading.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"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

“Wow. . . . Peter Mendelsund has changed the way I think about reading. Like the Wizard of Oz tornado, Mendelsund's lucid, questing prose and his surprising, joyful visuals collide to create a similar weather system inside the reader. Not only are you carried off to Oz, but you're aware at every moment of the cyclonic action of your reader's mind and your reader's imagination. It's so smart, so totally original, so beautiful, so good. I want to order copies to give to all of my friends.”
—Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove

“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. It reads as if the ghost of Italo Calvino audited Vladimir Nabokov's literature class and wrote his final paper with the help of Alvin Lustig and the Radiolab guys. Peter Mendelsund should get double extra credit for trying to describe things that I'm pretty sure there aren't words for (at least not yet.)"
—Chris Ware, author of Building Stories

"This book is 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

“He’s the exact visual correlative of what I think contemporary literature should be, but usually isn’t doing.”
—Tom McCarthy, author of Men in Space

“Peter Mendelsund pushes the visual and the verbal into unforeseen alliances. These alliances feel inevitable, establishing exactly the right balance between the timely and the timeless.”
—Jed Perl

“When I first spoke with Peter, after he’d begun work on the jacket for The Flame Alphabet,I was struck by how carefully he’d read the book. . . . To have it from a designer is unnerving and, of course, a piece of very good luck. When he asked me if there was anything I had in mind for the jacket, I knew by that point that I did not want to get in his way or even to put my voice in his head. I wanted an original Mendelsund.”
—Ben Marcus

“Once in a while I’m presented with design that crosses the barriers of cultural references and visual language—that feels universal—that feels like the perfect start to the story; design that I don’t want to reader to forget, but to carry with them. These designs are Peter Mendelsund’s.”
—Jo Nesbø

“All of Peter’s covers are funny, smart, and beautiful. And all of them say something about the visual nature of reading, writing, and perception. Each one is a poem. Look at them closely.”
—Jane Mendelsohn