Holidays are always a welcome time for me to catch up on reading, and I recently compiled a list of past and current favorites. I receive many requests for booklists, so this is my first attempt at creating one.
I divided it into two categories: Right Brain and Left Brain.

First, I'll present the Right Brain list. If you're looking for a gift for your photographer friends, these are all superb choices. I've read and re-read each of these books year after year for artistic inspiration. They are the classics, the "Top 10" of my collection.

Right Brain Books:

1) Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism, by Howard Chapnick

2) Let Truth Be the Prejudice: W. Eugene Smith, His Life and Photographs, by Ben Maddow, John G. Morris, and W. Eugene Smith

3) W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance : The Life and Work of an American Photographer, by Jim Hughes

4) The Photographic Essay, by William Albert Allard

5) The Mennonites, by Larry Towell

6) Why People Photograph, by Robert Adams

7) On Photography, by Susan Sontag

8) Stay this Moment, by Sam Abell

9) Sam Abell:The Photographic Life, by Leah Bendavid-Val and Sam Abell

10) The Photographer's Eye, by John Szarkowski

Check back tomorrow for the Left Brain list. In the meantime, share some of your favorites with me. I'd love to add them to the list!