News & Updates
- Michael Eric Dyson's Jay Z: Made in America hits the New York Times bestseller list
- NPR names Damon Young's What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker a favorite for 2019
- Maureen Corrigan picks Emily Bernard's Black is the Body as one of her "10 Unputdownable Reads" for 2019
- Ian Lendler's Dinosaur is a Kirkus Best Middle-Grade Nonfiction of 2019
- Brittney Cooper's Eloquent Rage is optioned by Gabrielle Union's production company, I’ll Have Another
Eye Chart

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. But we have since created more disquieting ways to test the strength of the eyes.
Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets interesting when you cannot read any further. It is the opposite of interpretative reading, like one does with literature. When you have finished reading an eye chart, what exactly have you even read? From a Spanish cleric's Renaissance guide to testing vision, to a Dutch ophthalmologist's innovation in optical tech, to the witty subversion of the eye chart in advertising and popular culture, William Germano's Eye Chart lets people see the eye chart at last.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.