Collage by Ashley Peña
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These days, most cultural criticism exists online. But there’s nothing quite like the tactile experience of flipping through a beautiful coffee table book focused on a singular subject. These ten monographs exemplify the best of 2024’s cultural photobook offerings, doubling as art pieces that are perfect for gifting or purchasing for your own reading pleasure.
A decade after Ryan McGinley first released his celebrated Yearbook series—which features the photographer’s friends and artistic collaborators in various states of nudity—this 304-page book compiles the best of the project into one work. The book’s models include downtown creatives like Mykki Blanco, Tyrell Hampton, Julia Fox, and Paloma Elsesser in their birthday suits. Shot between 2009 and 2019, the photographs celebrate the joy and confidence of bodily autonomy and capture a very specific moment in New York City history.
Dustin Pittman spent his life documenting some of the most important creative, artistic, and radical social scenes of mid-to-late 20th-century NYC—from Andy Warhol’s factory and Studio 54 to the women’s liberation movements of the 1970s and the New Wave club scene of the ’80s. New York After Dark compiles mostly previously unpublished works from the photographer’s prolific archive alongside Pittman’s notable memories and stories from those times.
When Angela Cappetta moved from her childhood home of New Haven, Connecticut to the Lower East Side in the 1990s, she found a vibrant community filled with tight-knit families. Despite the now-gentrified neighborhood’s challenges at the time, Cappetta felt welcomed with open arms. As she settled into her new home, she started photographing her neighbors, and the result is Glendalis, an intimate photo book featuring one Puerto Rican family in particular, with its titular youngest member as the focal point. “The home of a mom and her three girls is sacred territory,” Cappetta tells W of her book’s setting. “The beauty of the mundane—parenting, homework, dinner, sports—brings rhythm to these day-to-day rituals. And it glistens more brightly in neighborhoods with dust on its boots.”
Often imitated but never duplicated, Nora Ephron had an outsize impact on pop culture and film. Classics like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail are rom-com canon, and for the first time, a new monograph celebrates the writer-director’s lasting contributions to American cinema. From W contributor Ilana Kaplan, Nora Ephron at the Movies combines cultural criticism, interviews with key Ephron collaborators, and visual tributes to her films for a comprehensive exploration of her life and legacy.
Rather than take a break following the huge success of 2023’s Oscar-winning Poor Things, filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos got straight back to work on his next film: this year’s Kinds of Kindness. Told in three parts, the story features many frequent Lanthimos collaborators, including his favorite muse, Emma Stone. In his new book, i shall sing these songs beautifully, the director shares a beautiful behind-the-scenes look at the making of the New Orleans-set project, shot entirely on film and accompanied by writings from another Greek legend, the Archaic poet Sappho.
A good film director is both image-maker and world-builder, engaging our senses and evoking powerful emotions without ever stepping foot in front of the camera. But behind the scenes, many of Hollywood’s most talented auteurs also have great style. A24’s How Directors Dress: On Set, In the Edit, and Down the Red Carpet explores the way celebrated directors like Sofia Coppola and Spike Lee transmit their artistic sensibilities through clothing, with over 200 photos and essays by fashion journalists like Lynn Yeager and Lauren Sherman.
Marcelo Gutierrez has an eye for beauty. The Colombia-born, New York City-based makeup artist has been creating stunning looks for artists like Madonna, Chloë Sevigny, Tems, and Ayo Edebiri for years. With his first book, Gutierrez translates his skill from the face to the page—putting together images of stars like Joan Smalls, Lourdes Leon, and Gabbriette in beauty looks inspired by his painting background. “This idea originated from observing an overwhelming emphasis on European image-making,” Gutierrez tells W. “I felt a desire to celebrate the talent in New York City, the tribe I belong to.” The result is Nothing Precious, an aesthetic tribute to the colorful city and community he loves.
Susanne Bartsch, New York City’s unofficial master of after-hours ceremonies, has been running a culturally vibrant subset of nightlife for a few decades now. So it’s about time there was a book celebrating her imprint on every aspiring club kid’s imagination. Bartschland: Tales of New York City Nightlife features Bartsch’s personal anecdotes and candid photos of friends like Aquaria, Joey Arias, and Amanda Lepore, and the many stars who have attended her opulent parties, shows, and philanthropic balls over the years, including Madonna, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Giorgio Armani. The book also features the artists, ballroom dancers, and drag queens who are at the center of the scene.
The release of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter this year both sparked—and was part of—a renewed interest in Black cowboy culture. It couldn’t have come at a better time for Ivan McClellan, whose Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture captures this unique part of America’s history (and present) in vivid photographs. “I want to make sure that we have a broad idea of the culture, that there are men and women and they’re both powerful—because they both cowboy equally,” McClellan tells W. “And to represent the LGBTQ people in this world, the youth and the old folks in this world…there’s a broad range of stories and lives under those cowboy hats.”
Twenty-twenty-three’s Barbie was a cultural phenomenon in more ways than one—from setting off a global consumer obsession with the color pink to reigniting the trend toward theme dressing during red-carpet promotional tours. It’s the latter that this book focuses on, as it documents all the looks Margot Robbie wore while making the rounds for Barbie, plus a few exquisite outfits that she never got to show off due to that summer’s Hollywood strikes. A collection of photographs, drawings, and essays zero in on the details of each outfit and their corresponding archival reference—from Versace’s interpretation of Barbie’s 1985 “Day to Night” look to the Hervé Léger take on the doll’s iconic black-and-white striped bathing suit, with lots of Chanel in between.
