All I want for Christmas is … approximately 200 art books, which I neither have the space to store nor the time to read! Thankfully, our team of editors and critics is here to save the holiday season: Your handy gift guide to art books is here, with something for every artist and art enthusiast in your life — and maybe even yourself. That cinephile who loves talking politics and film? They’ll love comic artist and Hyperallergic contributor Nathan Gelgud’s Reel Politik, recommended by Reviews Editor Natalie Haddad. Your favorite tarot reader? Snag them a copy of Symbolorum, a guide to the intricate emblem system of 16th-century Europe, per critic Lauren Moya Ford. And for the Y2K fanatic, Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian suggests a visual guide to the decade that doubles as a lookbook. Find more picks for painters, planners, and Prospect Park-goers below. —Lakshmi Rivera Amin
For the person in your life who could use a little re-enchantment:
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, edited by Janet Bishop and Cara Manes
I absolutely adore Ruth Asawa, and anything Anne Anlin Cheng, I’m in. So you could say this catalog for the retrospective now at MoMA in New York was basically made for me — or anyone who needs a little help remembering how to find magic in the ordinary. Cheng’s essay on ornament in Asawa’s art (or at least perceptions of it) genuinely made me see her work differently, and it’s eminently readable, in classic Cheng fashion. There’s also a letter to the artist by novelist Ruth Ozeki — and did I mention the images? Gorgeous, and so many of them, which so fits Asawa’s generous spirit. —Lisa Yin Zhang
Buy on Bookshop | Yale University Press and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, April 2025
For your artsy friend who prizes the unexpected:
Rejection/Ambition: A 25 Year Performance by Anya Liftig
One of the first times I encountered Anya Liftig, she was upside down performing as poultry alongside two actual plucked and cleaned chickens, serving cluck cluck realness, if there is such a thing.
In her latest artist book, Rejection/Ambition: A 25 Year Performance, she has strung together rejection letters that document mistakes and foibles, while a reversed reading of this same book flags her determination and recognition. It seems fitting that Liftig would offer us a two-way orientation, suggesting that the act of reading is a performance by itself. —Hrag Vartanian
Buy the Book | Renous River Press, April 2025
For the Vermeer devotee who couldn’t get tickets in 2023:
Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and His Art by Ige Verslype, Abbie Vandivere, and Dorothy Mahon
It would be a dream, I think, to watch Johannes Vermeer in action as he painted — how did he compose his works so perfectly? How did he capture that light just so? Closer to Vermeer does as the title suggests, building on the Rijksmuseum’s groundbreaking 2023 exhibition that brought together 28 of his 37 known paintings. We get a closer look, for example, at how the camera obscura might have influenced his work. New X-ray technology helps us see his compositional changes over time. And we learn about the previously overlooked role of Maria de Knuijt as Vermeer’s primary patron, who purchased about half his oeuvre and left a considerable sum for him in her will. —AX Mina
Buy on Bookshop | Thames & Hudson, September 2025
For the early modern history buff:
Goya: The Complete Prints by Anna Reuter and José Manuel Matilla
In an 1831 biography of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, Javier Goya summed up in a single sentence the principles that had guided his father: “An observer of Velázquez and Rembrant [sic] with veneration, he did not study nor observe anything but nature, which he called his master.” When the artist died, there were 10 Rembrandt prints in his estate, and I emphasize this to point out how Goya was as much in dialogue with art history as his own time. In this impressive multilingual volume (English, German, and French), you are overwhelmed by the singular talent of Goya to render the world around him into black lines that continue to resonate today, perhaps more so than ever. The 80-print set Los caprichos (The Caprices) may be the apex of his artistic witchery and its power to observe more than what’s at the surface, but there is so much more to see. —HV
Buy on Bookshop | Taschen, October 2025
For the New Yorker who craves green space:
Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025 by Jamel Shabazz
Though I live a few avenue blocks from Prospect Park, I have yet to even scratch the surface of its long history. In this lush volume, photographer Jamel Shabazz shares some of the moments he has captured of what he calls his “oasis in Brooklyn” since 1980 — scenes of families fishing in the lake, friends swinging from tree branches, couples lounging at Gran Bwa, a site named for the Haitian Voudou tree spirit. Emphasizing the centrality of Black communities in shaping and peopling the historic park, Shabazz offers a vision of public space that centers dignity, repose, and the healing properties of communing in nature. —LA
Buy on Bookshop | Prestel, October 2025
For the nostalgic Gen Xer, or Gen Zer in search of a lookbook:
The 1990s: A Visual History of the Decade by Henry Carroll
The decade that birthed the internet, witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, gave us some hope in the fight against AIDS, ended South African apartheid, allowed us to dance our hearts out at raves, and so much else is summarized in this superhighway of visual culture. I couldn’t help but laugh at the author’s decision to juxtapose three mattress works by female artists (Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread) in the same decade, and there are other clever comparisons that reveal layers of the corporate chic sleekness of the era, along with its DIY aesthetics. There’s lots of art in the mix, and internet-like in its sometimes unexpected contrasts, it was a lot of fun to flip through. —HV
Buy on Bookshop | Thames & Hudson, October 2025
For the student of Black diasporic language:
Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars by Jonathan González
Artist and scholar Jonathan González’s new book evades exacting categorization. Ways to Move shifts easily from poetry to prose, oscillates between fragmented anecdote and essay. It is a book bathed in nostalgia and memory in spite of — rather, in addition to — its urgent premise, slinking between contemporary considerations and historical lineages. González begins with a poem steeped in romance and anchored by Black critical thought. A later essay pivots to 17th-century Obeah trials in Jamaica, used as a means to dampen potential rebellion, and the revolutionary capacity of reggae music. Each segment is grounded in a shared ethos of Black insurgent grammars. González’s writing liquidly traverses the oceans and borders that separate the diaspora, condensing time, recognizing the overlaps of diasporic chronology and the possibilities reached when we refuse our impulse to “surrender to the idea of the past as passed,” and instead recognize the ways “these pasts rage onwards into our present.” —Jasmine Weber
Buy the Book | Ugly Duckling Presse, November 2025
For the leftist film buff:
Reel Politik by Nathan Gelgud
When I started Reel Politik, I was afraid that its satire of cinephiles would be so on the nose that it would fall into its own trap. But by the end of this story of movie theater employees taking over their workplace with radical Marxism, it was a full-fledged action drama that goes in wonderfully weird directions. Blending a cinematic comic style with a knack for language, it’s the perfect gift for your sister who spent the ’90s working in the local theater while reading postmodern theory and listening to Fugazi — or anyone who loves to talk film and politics, or enjoys sharp satire. —Natalie Haddad
Buy on Bookshop | Drawn & Quarterly, November 2025
For the planner:
The Other Almanac 2026, edited by Ann Ratner
Who among us has not used the new year as an opportunity to start fresh? Famously, though, resolutions can be hard to keep. Enter The Other Almanac, an annual creative guide driven by the ways that artists, writers, and poets measure time and see the world. Among these luminaries are Jordan Casteel (whose new monograph you can also find on this list), Katherine Bradford, Raven Halfmoon, Larissa Pham, Mary Mattingly, Mel Chin, and Kris Rumman. Complete with zany monthly calendars, recipes, reflections, and more, this visually delightful map to the year ahead is a gem of a companion for navigating 2026 with an artistic sensibility. —LA
Buy on Bookshop | O/R Books, November 2025
For the anxious friend:
Lois Dodd: Framing the Ephemera
When the miseries of the world are too much to take; when greed, corruption, and injustice are all over the place; and when beauty and tenderness feel distant and scarce — pick up this monograph of 98-year-old American painter Lois Dodd, leaf through her precious depictions of nature and rural life, and notice how time suddenly slows down, the mind defogs, the soul detoxes, and the heart begins to smile. —Hakim Bishara
Read the Review | Buy on Bookshop | Hannibal Publishers, November 2025
For the East Harlem diehard:
Byzantine Bembé: New York by Manny Vega
A quintessential East Harlem artist, Manny Vega has street murals and mosaics strewn across El Barrio as informal cultural landmarks. An exhibition last year at the Museum of the City of New York honored the artist’s decades-long career and contribution to the neighborhood’s cultural heritage. This bilingual catalog is not just a tribute to Vega’s generous spirit and relentless energy, but also an ode to the city he calls home. —HB
Pre-order on Bookshop | Giles and the Museum of the City of New York, November 18, 2025
For the intellectually curious who thrive on visual stimuli:
Secret Maps: Maps You Were Never Meant to See, from the Middle Ages to Today by Tom Harper, Nick Dykes, and Magdalena Peszko
European imperial nations saw great value in keeping maps secret, sometimes to hide their grand ambitions and war plans. But since Ancient times, maps have long held an appeal as they show us a world view that our eyes are not privy to. This tome of over 100 maps brings that fascinating history to the contemporary day, as smartphones and data analysis have transformed maps again into portraits of individuals or whole swathes of society. A perfectly illustrated and narrated book for an afternoon of solitude. —HV
Pre-order on Bookshop | University of Chicago Press, November 24, 2025
For your local logophile:
Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle by Natan Last
On top of being our resident art crossword-maker and all-around nice guy, Natan Last is a really sharp writer and critic. (I can attest, since I’ve edited him.) Across the Universe covers the history of the puzzle while pulling back the curtain a little. His writing is architectural — carefully structured with dividing punctuation, and of course, wordplay — it reads like he’s, well, putting together a puzzle, and it’ll keep you hooked like one. By the end, you’ll be convinced that the crossword is an art form, if you aren’t already. Plus, the book opens with perhaps the sweetest epigraph I’ve ever seen. —LZ
Pre-order on Bookshop | Penguin Random House, November 25, 2025
For the mythology enthusiast:
Symbolorum: The Secret Wisdom of Emblems by Mandy Aftel
In 16th- and 17th-century Europe, people made sense of the world around them by looking to emblem books, a “long-lost cousin to the tarot,” writes author Mandy Aftel. They often featured symbolic scenes of plants and animals paired with Latin texts that drew from Aesop, Aristotle, and other ancient thinkers to impart universal lessons about life. Aftel introduces us to emblems in this curious compendium, melding past and present through 100 detailed images and inscriptions from a 1654 edition of German botanist Joachim Camerarius the Younger’s exquisite emblem book. Each engraving has been hand-painted by Aftel, who also includes her own commentaries as a perfumer and scholar of alchemy and mythology. This “literary cabinet of curiosities” is full of unexpected visuals and thought-provoking reflections; each image is a mysterious universe unto itself. —Lauren Moya Ford
Pre-order on Bookshop | Abbeville Press, December 9, 2025
For the painter:
Jordan Casteel by Legacy Russell, Asma Naeem, and Katherine Brinson
In a 2022 review for Hyperallergic, John Yau wrote that Jordan Casteel is “too in love with paint and what it could do to be called a photorealist.” This new monograph confirms that Castle’s portraits of friends and family, based on photographs, and images of flowers, foliage, and items from daily life are also tributes to painting itself. The volume, which includes essays by Asma Naeem and Katherine Brinson and a conversation between Casteel and curator Legacy Russell, reveals an artist who luxuriates in the color and materiality of her medium, while foregrounding the lives and visibility of Black individuals in her orbit. It’s the perfect gift for any fan of portraiture or aficionado of rich, rapturous painting. —NH
Pre-order on Bookshop | Phaidon Press, December 10, 2025
