Love Exiles? Readers share 61 books like Exiles...

By Josef Koudelka,

Here are 61 books that Exiles fans have personally recommended if you like Exiles. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Landscape

Nubar Alexanian Author Of Stones In the Road: Photographs of Peru

From my list on the poetry in documentary photographs.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been a documentary photographer for the past 50 years and my work has been featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time & Newsweek, and others. I have six books in print, including JAZZ with Wynton Marsalis & Nonfiction Photographs with filmmaker Errol Morris. I love teaching photography and co-founded the Essex Photographic Workshop in 1975. My work is in many collections, including The Peabody Essex Museum, The Worcester Art Museum, Polaroid Collection, Agfa Corporation, Participant Productions, Bose Corporation, Bibliotheque Nacionale, France. Solo exhibitions of my work include the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Burden Gallery.

Nubar's book list on the poetry in documentary photographs

Nubar Alexanian Why did Nubar love this book?

I have loved this book of black & white photographs for nearly 5 decades and still look at it often. Itā€™s like a book of poetry, meant to be lived with rather than simply looked at one or twice. What I like is how quiet these images are while at the same time being incredibly compelling. I see something new in these images almost every time I look at them.  What could be better in a book of photographs? What Iā€™ve learned is that photographs embrace poetry more naturally than narrative storytelling. Yesā€”it's a picture of a parsnipā€”but is that an eye in the middle of it looking back at me? 

By Paul Caponigro,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Landscape as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Last Roll

Nubar Alexanian Author Of Stones In the Road: Photographs of Peru

From my list on the poetry in documentary photographs.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been a documentary photographer for the past 50 years and my work has been featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time & Newsweek, and others. I have six books in print, including JAZZ with Wynton Marsalis & Nonfiction Photographs with filmmaker Errol Morris. I love teaching photography and co-founded the Essex Photographic Workshop in 1975. My work is in many collections, including The Peabody Essex Museum, The Worcester Art Museum, Polaroid Collection, Agfa Corporation, Participant Productions, Bose Corporation, Bibliotheque Nacionale, France. Solo exhibitions of my work include the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Burden Gallery.

Nubar's book list on the poetry in documentary photographs

Nubar Alexanian Why did Nubar love this book?

I own five signed copies of this book which I loan out to young photographers. The lesson in this book of documentary photographs is the irrelevance of information and the importance of emotion. In this way, Jeffā€™s work redefines photography by expanding the very notion of what a documentary photograph isā€¦.and can be. In 2004 Jeff was diagnosed with lymphoma. Soon afterwards Kodak discontinued the production of Kodachrome, the film his entire visual vocabulary was based on and now was gone forever. What do you do when confronted with physical and creative mortality? The Last Roll, by Jeff Jacobson, is an amazing response to this question. 

By Jeff Jacobson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Last Roll as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A few days before Christmas, 2004, I was diagnosed with lymphoma," writes Jeff Jacobson in his preface to The Last Roll. The NY Times LENS Blog described Jacobson as "pushing the visual boundaries of photojournalism" in this work providing a first-person depiction of a cancer patient's changing perspectives on life, death, art, and the world at-large.

A former Magnum photographer known for his quirky style, Jeff Jacobson was one of the first art photographers to use color film exclusively. For his 1991 book My Fellow Americans he traveled the country, capturing the look and mood of a decade. Over time,ā€¦


Book cover of Growing Up Female: A Personal Photojournal

Nubar Alexanian Author Of Stones In the Road: Photographs of Peru

From my list on the poetry in documentary photographs.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been a documentary photographer for the past 50 years and my work has been featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time & Newsweek, and others. I have six books in print, including JAZZ with Wynton Marsalis & Nonfiction Photographs with filmmaker Errol Morris. I love teaching photography and co-founded the Essex Photographic Workshop in 1975. My work is in many collections, including The Peabody Essex Museum, The Worcester Art Museum, Polaroid Collection, Agfa Corporation, Participant Productions, Bose Corporation, Bibliotheque Nacionale, France. Solo exhibitions of my work include the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Burden Gallery.

Nubar's book list on the poetry in documentary photographs

Nubar Alexanian Why did Nubar love this book?

When my wife and I met in 1975, one of the things we had in common was that we both owned a copy of Growing Up Female. And the bindings on both copies were pretty worn out. This is a deeply personal journal of compelling photographs and eloquent text about womenā€”from a feministā€™s point of view.  What I love about this book is how deeply moving it is and how well it demonstrates a narrative approach to taking, editing, and sequencing first-person photographs. Not to mention that this book sold 25,000 copies (unheard of for books of photography) and had a significant impact on the view of a womanā€™s place in our culture.  

By Abigail Heyman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Growing Up Female as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Growing up female;: A personal photojournal Hardcover by Abigail Heyman (Author)


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorā€”and only womanā€”on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route upā€¦

Book cover of Luminance

Nubar Alexanian Author Of Stones In the Road: Photographs of Peru

From my list on the poetry in documentary photographs.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been a documentary photographer for the past 50 years and my work has been featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time & Newsweek, and others. I have six books in print, including JAZZ with Wynton Marsalis & Nonfiction Photographs with filmmaker Errol Morris. I love teaching photography and co-founded the Essex Photographic Workshop in 1975. My work is in many collections, including The Peabody Essex Museum, The Worcester Art Museum, Polaroid Collection, Agfa Corporation, Participant Productions, Bose Corporation, Bibliotheque Nacionale, France. Solo exhibitions of my work include the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Burden Gallery.

Nubar's book list on the poetry in documentary photographs

Nubar Alexanian Why did Nubar love this book?

This book cemented my commitment to being a photographer. The images are stunning jewels frozen in silver from ancient places in countries like India, Ireland, Egypt, & Tibet. Printed beautifully in warm black and white tones along with inspiring quotes, every image speaks to me: slow down, pay attention to what you see and feel. And focus on the light and the shadow.

By Linda Connor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Luminance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The third in the "LUX" series of fine art photography monographs by the Center for Photographic Arts.


Book cover of The Year That Changed Our World: A Photographic History of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Deborah Lupton Author Of COVID Societies: Theorising the Coronavirus Crisis

From my list on everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a sociologist with a longstanding interest in the social aspects of medicine and public health. I started with research on HIV/AIDS. Since then, I have written many books and conducted a multitude of studies on how people understand and experience health and illness and how they seek help when they are sick or feel at risk from disease. When COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, it was not long before I started to think about what my research training and expertise could offer to understanding the social impacts of this new pandemic. I started to write about COVID and research on peopleā€™s everyday experiences.

Deborah's book list on everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic

Deborah Lupton Why did Deborah love this book?

This book presents hundreds of photographs taken by Agence France Presse around the world in the first 18 months of the COVID pandemic. The images span the full range from the mundane (people exercising at home) to the bizarre (weird home-made face masks) to those that are frightening and tragic (mass coffins and graves). Over 150 countries are represented in these images, which are arranged chronologically, thereby presenting a visual global timeline of the major events occurring during this crucial early period of the continuing pandemic, when this disease was still a mysterious threat. This book helps us to remember the feelings of urgency, confusion, panic, and fear that were part of this period, as people came to terms with the upheavals wrought by the pandemic.

By Agence France Presse,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Year That Changed Our World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Year That Changed Our World is the definitive, visual history of the Covid-19 Pandemic. With more than 400 photographs, this ambitious publication traces the arc of the Pandemic from China in early 2020 through to the vaccine breakthroughs of Spring 2021.

Behind the relentless nature of the daily news since the events on Wuhan in early 2020 first broke, and the sense of fear and trepidation that the rapidly developing events provoked, what have we seen of the real stories of the world during the Pandemic? What can be told of how we lived through the pandemic and ofā€¦


Book cover of Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs

Marlene Adelstein Author Of Sophie Last Seen

From my list on by and about strong-willed, independent women.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a reader, Iā€™m drawn to characters and subjects I can relate to. Strong women who go their own way, ones who march to their own drummer. There is a raw honesty to their stories with subjects of creativity, grief, and loss. And as a writer of both fiction and personal essay, I write about these same issues as well, subjects I seem to turn to again and again. When I write, I try to tap into the emotions that might be buried but Iā€™m always looking to move my readers whether itā€™s with tears or laughter, and the women in the books I chose do that for me. 

Marlene's book list on by and about strong-willed, independent women

Marlene Adelstein Why did Marlene love this book?

Hold Still by Sally Mann ā€“ another memoir by an intriguing, strong-willed, fascinating woman. I became interested in Sally Mann when I first saw her book of amazing photographs of her children, Immediate Family. Since then I kept up with her photography and was thrilled to read her memoir. She writes of her childhood in the south, her parents, her relationship with her husband and children, the controversy surrounding those early stages photographs, her career, and beyond in absolutely lovely prose accompanied by many photos. Sheā€™s an impressive, talented woman, and her success is well deserved.

By Sally Mann,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hold Still as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann.

In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.

Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications,ā€¦


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. BrenƩ Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,ā€¦

Book cover of The Obsessed: Otakus, Tribes, and Subcultures of Japan

Rob Goss Author Of Japan Traveler's Companion: Japan's Most Famous Sights From Okinawa to Hokkaido

From my list on get a deeper understanding of Japan.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been living in and writing about Japan for two decadesā€”itā€™s where my wife and I have raised a bicultural family and where I donā€™t think Iā€™ll ever run out of stories I want to tell. Whether written by Japanese or non-Japanese, I love reading work that documents Japan and its culture in an honest and thoughtful way. I hope youā€™ll try some of the books on this list because, with so much Japan coverage today veering towards cultural exoticism and fetishism or leaning on familiar stereotypes and tropes, itā€™s even more important to seek out great Japanese writing.

Rob's book list on get a deeper understanding of Japan

Rob Goss Why did Rob love this book?

This book is the perfect antidote to all the stereotypes written about Japanā€™s subcultures. Nothing annoys me more than coverage that labels Japan as weird, quirky, or bizarre when really it just has different elements to the culture of those who use such labels. 

That kind of othering ignores that beneath the surface, thereā€™s much that unites Japanese with Americans or Brits or anyone else. We all laugh, cry, and experience a similar raft of emotions from birth to death. What I love about this book, beyond Wongā€™s superb photography, is how his interviews humanize the cosplayers, gyaru and varied otaku he meets, while also offering insights into their passions and lifestyles. 

By gestalten (editor), Irwin Wong (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Obsessed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The book will delve into the world of Japanese subcultures and the obsessive approach that many people take to their hobbies, passions and lifestyle choices. The Obsessed will contain photos and texts ā€“ such as potentially profiles, essays or features ā€“ of a diverse range of Otaku and other fans and followers of different subcultures, and will unveil what is behind these obsessions and what makes these people tick.


Book cover of Kibbitz & Nosh

Deborah Dash Moore Author Of Walkers in the City

From my list on Jewish photographers and their pictures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I discovered Jewish photographers a couple of decades ago when I worked on a book, Cityscapes: A History of New York in Images. At the time, I was intrigued with how to tell the cityā€™s history through photographs. Then, when I started to request permission to publish, I discovered that most of the photographers were Jewish New Yorkers. That sent me down a twisting path as I learned about more and more and more Jewish photographers. All types of photographers: professional and lay, photojournalists and street photographers, fashion photographers and family photographers. I fell in love with the multitude of their images. Turns out I was not the only one. 

Deborah's book list on Jewish photographers and their pictures

Deborah Dash Moore Why did Deborah love this book?

I confess I love the photographs, and there are lots of them. Marcia Bricker Halperin, a New York Jewish photographer, took them back in the 1970s, but only after she rediscovered them did she realize what she had done.

I treasure spending time looking at the faces of these men and women in the cafeteria, eavesdropping on their conversations, admiring the incredible theatrical milieu, and entering their world of good food and fast friendships. 

By Marcia Bricker Halperin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kibbitz & Nosh as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On a winter's day in the mid-1970s the photographer Marcia Bricker Halperin sought warm refuge and, camera in hand, passed through the revolving doors of Dubrow's Cafeteria on Kings Highway. There, between the magical mirrored walls and steaming coffee urns, she found herself as if on a theater set, looking out at a tableau of memorable Brooklyn faces. Enchanted, Halperin returned to Dubrow's again and again.

In Kibbitz & Nosh, Halperin reminds us of the days when she would order a coffee, converse with the denizens of Dubrow's on Kings Highway and at its Manhattan location in the Garment District,ā€¦


Book cover of Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style

Laura T. Di Summa Author Of A Philosophy of Fashion Through Film: On the Body, Style, and Identity

From my list on people who overthink their look.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I spent hours marveling at my fatherā€™s collection of ties. In love with tailoring, he taught me the meaning of ā€œsprezzaturaā€ and the joys that come from thinking of clothes as a part of yourself. Fashion returned to me as I studied philosophy, art history, and film. It took a few years, but then it just became clear to me that I had to talk about it. So I started writing, curating, and experimenting a bit more. I always say that fashion is a verb: my work is to explore what It can do, whether by curating a show, writing articles, or perusing local boutiques in my travels.

Laura's book list on people who overthink their look

Laura T. Di Summa Why did Laura love this book?

In 2015, Shantrelle P. Lewis curated Dandy Lion at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. This book is about that exhibition, the photographs displayed, and the stories of the people photographed.

It is, for me, a gorgeous example of fashionā€™s relation to our individual and social identities. It is a way of touring the intimate as well as the political through images of the Black Dandy. Colors, cuts, sartorial details, and poses all come together in a book that is as informative to read as it is a pleasure to look at. 

By Shantrelle P. Lewis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dandy Lion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Suits that pop with loud colors and dazzling patterns, complete with a nearly ubiquitous bowtie, define the style of the new "dandy." Described as "high-styled rebels" by author Shantrelle P. Lewis, black men with a penchant for color and refined fashion, both new and vintage, have gained popular attention in recent years, influencing mainstream fashion. But black dandyism itself is not new; originating in Enlightenment England's slave culture, it has continued for generations in black cultures around the world. Now, set against the backdrop of hip-hop culture, this iteration of dandies is redefining what it means to be black, masculine,ā€¦


Book cover of On Photography

Barry Sandywell Author Of Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms

From my list on beginning the study of visual culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm currently an Honorary Fellow in Social Theory at the University of York, U.K. For more than five decades I've been working to promote more reflexive perspectives in philosophy, sociology, social theory, and sociological research. I've written and edited many books in the field of social theory with particular emphasis upon questions of culture and critical research in the expanding field of visual culture. Recent projects include Interpreting Visual Culture (with Ian Heywood), The Handbook of Visual Culture, and an edited multi-volume textbook to be published by Bloomsbury, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Visual Culture. The passion to understand the thought and visual culture of both the ancient and modern world continues to inform my work. 

Barry's book list on beginning the study of visual culture

Barry Sandywell Why did Barry love this book?

On Photography is Sontagā€™s attempt to develop the thought of Barthes, Benjamin, and others and apply the resultant perspective to the critical understanding of the fundamental role of photography in modern life. The book is constructed as a series of interconnected essays, each of which explores the moral and dialectical character of photographic interventions. Photography embodies the moral ambiguity of human activity: the camera claims to deliver truth but is essentially selective and partial; photography reveals and conceals the real; the photograph is an artificial mode of representation but claims to provide a `pictureā€™ of life that can only be captured through the camera.

This ambiguous ontology of the image impacts upon both the act of image-making and the interpretive task of reading and understanding the image. With modern photography the viewer is constituted in a dual movement of separation (and alienation) and connectivity (and communality). Photographic engagement constitutes, soā€¦

By Susan Sontag,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked On Photography as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The most original and illuminating study of the subject.' The New Yorker

Photographs are everywhere. From high art to family albums to legal evidence, they capture and document the world around us. And whether we use them to expose, reveal or remember, they hold an enduring power.

In this essential and revelatory volume, Susan Sontag confronts important questions surrounding the power dynamics between photographer and subject, the blurred boundary between lived events and recreated images, and the desires that lead us to record our lives.

'Complex and contradictory... one of America's greatest public intellectuals' Observer

'Susan Sontag offers enough foodā€¦


Book cover of Landscape
Book cover of The Last Roll
Book cover of Growing Up Female: A Personal Photojournal

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Interested in fine art photography, Czechoslovakia, and documentary photography?

Czechoslovakia 29 books