Art and Photography
Here you will find books in the genre of of art and photography. Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.
Panic at Toad Hall
The artwork for this book is wonderful – it suits the subject matter very well, and it extremely lively and fun. However, the story will be quite ha…
Razmataz
This black and white graphic novel is a collection of work in comics previously published elsewhere. It has some striking images of the heroine Razmataz…
But Is It Art?
Cynthia Freeland’s But Is It Art? provides an introduction to issues and problems surrounding the interpretation and understanding of contemporary…
Expressionism
For some, reading about art history is likely to induce sleep (perhaps you took an art history class in college, and witnessed this phenenomenon in perso…
Bus Odyssey
Tom Wood took these photographs on his bus journeys in Liverpool, England, between 1979 and 1996. Most were taken on double-decker buses, either of…
Ray’s a Laugh
It might seem a simple matter for someone to take photographs of his family, capturing them at emotionally revealing moments. But I imagine it is actuall…
Entering Germany
Tony Vaccaro took over 9,000 photographs of Germany between 1944 and 1949. He served in Germany as an infantryman until the end of the war and remained a…
Rineke Dijkstra
This nicely produced book was published to accompany an exhibition of the work of photographer and videographer Rineke Dijkstra at the Institute of Conte…
Remembering Georgy
This book is about Georg Halpern, who was eight years old when he was murdered at Auschwitz. It contains reproductions of his letters and drawings he mad…
A Treasury of Victorian Murder
This little book is a reprint from 1987. It’s a collection of three true stories of murder in Scotland, England and New York, rich with the details of Victo…
Hollywood Cowboy
This book of photographs is stylish but extremely perplexing. Most of them were taken between 1988 ad 2000, but they exhibit a sensibility of a different…
The Education of Sophie
This 45-page highly explicit erotic graphic novel depicts the initiation of Sophie into a sexual society. It is set in London high society. She starts ou…
Thinking of You
Thinking of You is the catalogue of a major retrospective of Barbara Kruger’s work organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.…
Writers on Artists
Writers on Artists is a beautifully produced interesting coffee-table book for people who are ready for some substantial discussion of art. The id…
Crumple
On the front of Crumple it warns “For Mature Readers” and it’s easy to understand why; this science fiction story features sex, por…
Blab!
This 120-page collection of comic book art contains remarkable work. As a whole, it manages to convey a sense of claustrophobic neurosis. Even though many o…
Nothing Obvious
What if the only pictures we had to represent the erotic were pornographic magazines like Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy? What if th…
Skin Deep
Charles Burns is one of the most distinctive comic book artists working today. His bold black and white highly stylized work clearly owes a great d…
Coincidences
This is a large book, both in the size and number of the pages; at nearly 300, it is has many more photographs than most collections of the work of indiv…
Raptors
This third installment of a story about vampires versus humans in a fictional future was released in France last year and is available in this good trans…
Sidewalk Stories
The statistics speak for themselves: between 30% and 50% of homeless single adults in shelters in New York City have chronic mental illnesses. The…
Dan & Larry
Don’t Do That! is a graphic novella telling an unpleasant tale of Dan, a twelve year old duck, and Larry, a much older creepy comic book artist. It i…
I Am Not This Body
When handling a nicely produced hardcover book in large format, printed and bound in Italy, with a $40 price tag on the inside cover, it is hard to see the…
New York September 11
On September 11, 2001, I was at home on Long Island, fifty miles from Manhattan, and my wife and I watched the television news during the day, seeing the im…
The Illustrated Story of O
If I remember rightly, I read parts of The Story of O when I w…