It isn't the book you judge by the cover-it's the book you read by the cover. Come, my friend, and soak up the pages of Chip Kidd's second novel, The Learners.

The Learners follows our semi-hero Happy from Kidd's previous The Cheese Monkeys through his first year or so at the ad agency Spear, Rakoff & Ware. The Cheese Monkeys left us as Happy was finishing his first year studying art at a large state school, working through his first design class with demanding but inspiring Winter Sorbeck, and the beginning of his relationship with half-crazy Himillsy Dodd.

That was what we knew before. Time has moved faster than normal, and now Happy works at the place that used to employ his favorite teacher Sorbeck. Happy successfully follows the first of Sorbeck's footsteps, Himillsy resurfaces and the story is on its way. The novel, through its keen-eyed aestheticism, concerns itself equally with Happy's life at the agency and his life elsewhere.

The book, the physical book, not just the words-that everbound piece of mass-that is what makes Kidd's first move on the reader. The book was written with its physical pages and manifestation in mind. Kidd did this by composing the book in his design program, paying special attention (it is apparent) to how the work is split between the pages. One example: Happy is on a train back home, he opens a note, and...

The reader turns the page to see what it says. It happens multiple times-multiple, brilliant times. Kidd, however, is a good enough writer, and a good enough designer, to use these potential novelties (they aren't) only when they service the work.

Kidd's second move is in the text itself. Much of the novel concerns Happy's progressively more direct experiences with a psychology experiment happening in town. Throughout the novel, it becomes apparent that the experiment is a familiar one, one that will be familiar to most readers as a staple of psychology classes and discussions of sociology.

Although the rest of the book floats in the murky waters between memoir and novel, Kidd promises us that all the details involving the experiment are true, which gives the book another interesting function; not only does The Learners give us some interesting details about the experiment which has its own historical significance, but it gives us a particularly visual context in which to view them.

For those with a marginal interest in design similar to mine, the reckless throwing around of old school design jargon made the prose endearing. But even those who don't yet care much about design, Kidd's typographic digressions will win you over, and along with the rest of his text, maybe tell you something about people too.