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The Best Books of 2015


Best Books 2015 Best Books 2015 photo-eye’s annual survey of the year’s best photobooks as chosen by 24 notables from the art photo world.


We are delighted to present photo-eye’s Best Books of 2015. As in the last six years, photo-eye asked photobook lovers from across the world to share their favorite books of the year. Our contributors for 2015 are:
10x10 Photobooks
Gerry Badger
Daniel Boetker-Smith
Sarah Bradley
David Campany
Alejandro Cartagena
Rémi Coignet
John Gossage
Yumi Goto
Hans Gremmen
Christopher J. Johnson
Erik Kessels
Jeffrey Ladd
Little Brown Mushroom
Melanie McWhorter
Kevin Messina
Rafal Milach
Colin Pantall
Martin Parr
John Phelan
Thomas Sauvin
Aaron Schuman
Miwa Susuda
Ed Templeton

Since 2009, photo-eye’s Best Books feature has been comprised of lists from multiple contributors. In recent years multi-contributor lists appear in an increasing number of venues. At photo-eye, Best Books is not about achieving an authoritative overview. In fact, we're confident in saying no one assembling a multi-contributor year-end best photobook list could possibly expect to meet this goal — it would be antithetical to such a project to begin with. But while the expansion of voices dilutes the concept of arbiters, it better reflects our topic — the varied, expanding and unpredictable world of photobooks, too vast for any one expert to command.

Below you’ll find a list of well-loved photobooks published within the last year, give or take a few months. Each bears the recommendation of someone who has seen a lot of photobooks, thought about them and decided to share what they personally liked. While writing this introduction I looked back on our first multi-contributor list in 2009. Its introduction is short and true of this list as well: “The range of books selected... is vast — spanning continents and genres, and together they form a powerful survey of contemporary photography. Since our very format denies the idea of an over-arching and objective top 10, below you'll find a more modest ‘master list,’ made up of the books that appear on at least three individual lists.”

We hope you enjoy exploring the over 150 titles that make up the 2015 lists. You'll find our top 17 picks of 2015 below. Individual lists can be reached by clicking on each contributor's name.

—Sarah Bradley, Editor of photo-eye Blog

By Mariela Sancari
La Fabrica

By Dana Lixenberg
Roma Publications

By Paul Kooiker
Art Paper Editions

By Thomas Sauvin
Jiazazhi Press

By Ron Jude
MACK

By Alec Soth
MACK

By Mariken Wessels
Art Paper Editions

By Daniel Mayrit
Riot Books

By Christian Patterson
Koenig Books

By Boris Mikhailov
Walter Koenig

By Doug Dubois
Aperture

By Peter Mitchell
RRB Publishing

By TR Ericsson
The Cleveland Museum of Art

By Ivars Gravlejs
MACK

By Laura El-Tantawy
Self-Published

By Christien Meindertsma & Mathijs Labadie
Thomas Eyck

By Vicente Paredes
This Book is True