{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399591079?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0399591079","authors":["Teju Cole"],"book_id":"9780399591075","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/blind-spot-9780399591075","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780399591075.jpg?v=46a0b52fda4cb291","description":"In this innovative synthesis of words and images, the award-winning author of Open City and photography critic for The New York Times Magazine combines two of his great passions. One of Time ’s Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of the Year • One of Smithsonian ’s Ten Best Photography Books of the Year When it comes to Teju Cole, the unexpected is not unfamiliar: He’s an acclaimed novelist, an influential essayist, and an internationally exhibited photographer. In Blind Spot , readers follow Cole’s inimitable artistic vision into the visual realm as he continues to refine the voice, eye, and intellectual obsessions that earned him such acclaim for Open City . Here, journey through more than 150 of Cole’s full-color original photos, each accompanied by his lyrical and evocative prose, forming a multimedia diary of years of near-constant travel: from a park in Berlin to a mountain range in Switzerland, a church exterior in Lagos to a parking lot in Brooklyn; landscapes and interiors, beautiful or quotidian, that inspire Cole’s memories, fantasies, and introspections. Ships in Capri remind him of the work of writers from Homer to Edna O’Brien; a hotel room in Wannsee brings back a disturbing dream about a friend’s death; a home in Tivoli evokes a transformative period of semi-blindness, after which “the photography changed. . . . The looking changed.” As exquisitely wrought as the work of Anne Carson or Chris Marker, Blind Spot is a testament to the art of seeing by one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary literature. Praise for Blind Spot “Common things [are] made radiant by the quality of Cole’s looking. . . . In this new, luminous book, Cole shows himself to be really one of the best at seeing.” — The Guardian “This lyrical essay in photographs paired with texts explores the mysteries of the ordinary.” — The New York Times Books Review (Editors’ Choice) “Stunning . . . feels like the fulfillment of an intellectual project that has defined most of [Cole’s] career.” — Slate “Dazzling . . . cerebral yet intimate . . . combines personal essay, history, biography, journalism, and photography into a seamless package, capturing human dignity and grace through careful, clear-eyed reverence.” — Vice “An eclectically brilliant distillation of what photography can do, and why it remains an important art form.” — San Francisco Chronicle","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780399591075","publication_date":"20170613","publisher":"Random House Publishing Group","slug":"blind-spot","subtitle":"","title":"Blind 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