The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a monumental work by illustrator, author, bookmaker, and RISD grad Brian Selznick. The book had been hanging around my house for the last few months as a gift from a friend and just last week I learned of its RISD origins. It’s unique for how the book mixes the novel format with full-page illustrations and full-page texts. It’s beautifully designed, illustrated, and written in the imaginative style of someone who has lived a curious life that is thus expressed in this work, in his words, as, “twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words” and “one hundred and fifty-eight different pictures.”