Brian Lerer on WNYC.

So some of you know my brother, the widely acclaimed author and designer and School of

Visual Arts Professor Warren Lerer considered a pioneer in the field of visual

literature, books written by him or others and visually designed by him. Some of his books are in

the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty in Los Angeles, the

Pompidou Center in Paris, the Tate in London, and elsewhere, the New York Times wrote

that in Warren's books, quote, words take on thoughts, vary form, bringing sensory experience

to the reader as directly as ink on paper can allow, and once considered too far ahead of his

time, now the Times are beginning to catch up to him,

unquote, from the New York Times. And that review of previous work may be more relevant than ever

when the Times says words take on thoughts vary form, because Warren has a new novel that channels

the inner thoughts of a character named Dr. Nora Hansen, a historian who had a stroke that deprived her of the ability to speak.

The book contrasts the words from the thoughts in her head with the ones, the few ones at the beginning of the book, that she is able to get out of her mouth.

Listeners, in a few minutes, we'll invite you to share your own real life stories of that

or of someone you know of recovering the ability to speak after it's been lost.

Format-wise, although I will admit to being completely biased, I will say this is an extraordinarily innovative book.

It's a digital book.

It exists only online.

Some of it is like little videos of the text in the book presenting itself to you.

Other sections you read by scrolling at your own pace as new graphically designed paragraphs appear,

Warren calls this kinetic typography. And the entire book has a musical score, both the parts

that you scroll through and the parts that display themselves. The composer is Andrew Griffin,

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