The 10 Best photography books

From Magnum contact sheets to portraits by Mario Testino, there’s something here for everyone to feast their eyes on...

Samuel Muston Author Biography

Samuel Muston

Samuel Muston writes features and a weekly food column called On the Menu.

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Thursday 19 July 2012

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1. Lawrence Schiller: Marilyn & Me

£ 650, taschen.com

Monroe gave a young Brooklyn photographer his big break by choosing him to photograph her. And here is the result – a limited-print-run heirloom of a book.

2. Magnum Contact Sheets

£95, thamesandhudson.com

If you are serious about photography, you'll want this book. It lays bare the creative process by juxtaposing a famous image with the photographers' contact sheets.

3. Photofile: Sarah Moon

£9.95, thamesandhudson.com

Moon has shot for Vogue, Harper's and Chanel. This new book is a showcase of both the scope of her work and of her ethereal, otherworldly style.

4. The Artist's Body

£12.95, uk.phaidon.com

This 250-image book is best thought of as a photo essay, a rumination on the way artists have used their own bodies to create art through the 20th century.

5. Mario Testino Private View

£44.99, taschen.com

Testino makes fashion types' hearts beat that bit faster. The Peruvian has also taken on the world of formal portraiture.

6. World Press Photo 12 by Teun Van Der Heijden

£16.95, thamesandhudson.com

The stirring yearly annual put out by World Press Photo. Categories covered include: people, general news and sport.

7. Bob Willoughby: Audrey Hepburn

£ 44.99, taschen.com

Willoughby's snaps of Hepburn, span the late 1950s right through to the peak of her My Fair Lady fame.

8. Dorothea Lange

£7.95, uk.phaidon.com

Lange was the first woman to be awarded the Guggenheim Photography Fellowship and this book showcases her most famous work.

9. The Sites of Ancient Greece by Georg Gerster

£39.95, uk.phaidon.com

With tails of strife and discord the daily bread of Greece, it is easy to forget why the country has beguiled so many.

10. In The Moment: The Sports Photography of Tom Jenkins

£30, randomhouse.co.uk

Few have proved more adept at capturing the passion of sport than Jenkins.

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