100 books like Reconstructing the View

I love a writer who is willing to put his life at risk to solve a mystery. And I love history and biography. The mystery? What happened to Glen and Bessie Hyde, a young couple who vanished on their honeymoon while trying to run the length of the canyon in 1928 in a scow—a boat that looked like a water trough.

Dimock, a Grand Canyon guide and builder of wooden dories, researched this type of craft and, together with his wife, braved the rapids because he thought this would provide clues about the disappearance. Having rowed unwieldy baggage boats in the canyon myself, I emphasized with their plight, and the story of the honeymooners is one guides often tell the clients sitting in camp chairs in the after-dinner circle.  

This book covers the most famous canoe trip of them all: John Wesley Powell's courageous exploration through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. No one knew what the Grand Canyon was like; no one had ever run it, and no one even knew where it ended. What I particularly liked about the book is the way it is written, a genuine thriller, and as a reader, I am right there in the boats with Powell and his small crew, most of whom had never been in a boat before…to say nothing of the most dangerous water in America. Another big plus is that the narrative draws on the diaries of three of the members, so I am reading the complaints and hardships from several sources. 

Rather, miraculously, they built their own boats and then plunged into the "unknown." Major Powell took the lead boat, and the fact that he… show more.

I once dislocated a shoulder while crossing the canyon’s Thunder River raging with snowmelt; another time, I got lost on the Paria Plateau, separated from my pack, and spent a miserable night in a tee-shirt and shorts while thunder and lightning scared the Bejesus out of me. So, these tales of death and disaster compiled by two canyon veterans cut close to the bone.

They’re not depressing reading, surprisingly. There are accounts of amazing survival, and much can be learned from these cases to avoid getting yourself into trouble. Not something most readers will read cover to cover, but I did and dip into it still on occasion.

I love the artwork: funny, pictograph-style vignettes of the different ways you can die in the canyon (many more than you’d think). 

Having attempted my own Grand Canyon thru-hike, on the largely trail-less north side of the Colorado River, I have walked in Fletcher’s shoes, metaphorically speaking. Mine started to come apart—with their soles delaminating—on day 1; before the end of day 40, I had to have a replacement pair brought in. Those pinched, and I lost toenails.

Beyond the minutiae of long-distance backpacking, the Welsh author of this classic of outdoor literature makes plenty of room for contemplation. At the end of a long, hot, hard, blistering day, I, too, spent many an hour perched on the rim, with a glimpse of the river far below, pondering my role in the grand scheme of things. Then it was always on to supper, which never has tasted better.

Women photographers have all too often been overlooked or forgotten. (This happened to the subject of my own book choice, Helen Post.) But Helen Levitt – who really flourished from the 1940s through the 1960s and is now undergoing something of a renaissance – has always had devotees. Steichen invited her to contribute to The Family of Man and one of her most notable admirers, James Agee, the novelist, poet, film critic, and documentarian, was pleased to write the insightful essay to A Way of Seeing. Levitt’s quirky pictures of street life – especially those featuring children, often at play – document quite ordinary customs at a particular moment. Despite never seeming intrusive, they get up close, reveal the photographer’s rapport with her subjects, and present them, so to speak, on the level. Ultimately, these images are so expressive that they become universal, transcending the period in which they… show more.

The black-and-white images of Ralph Eugene Meatyard have long fascinated me and informed my visual work and writing. Meatyard was, by profession, an optician in Lexington, Kentucky, yet his personal passion was making photographs. His subjects were his wife, children, and family friends, who he often posed in murky settings as they wore masks and held dolls. These images are both disquieting and euphonious, tapping into something primal that hints at the secretive world of childhood.

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 fashion’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. 

I think that Brad has an amazing photographer's eye.

Using drones, he has created a unique book of photographs of swimming pools from above. This could have been a mundane subject, but in Brad’s hands, each photo is perfectly framed, sized, and cropped to reveal geometry you would not expect, reminiscent of a colorful abstract painting. What I like about his work is how he can look at a pool and find the perfect abstract detail: a sinuous curve, geometric lines, and rectangles, little bits of pool furniture, blue sparkling water combined in a way that no one else would have seen. 

Legendary travel photog Steve McCurry has developed a bad reputation over the decades for reportedly mistreating his subjects (notably “Afghan Girl” Sharbat Gula), for allegedly staging and digitally manipulating images (as opposed to the candid shots he claims they are), and for profiting handsomely from it all. But gosh dang if his photographs aren’t gorgeous! In light of his purported misdeeds, I do not intend on dropping any more money on his newest retrospective books, but 2000’s South Southeast – based on his early work in Asia – will always remain on my bookshelf.

In the 1940s, a young American woman named Mariana Yampolsky came to Mexico to study and never looked back. Throughout the 1960s, she wandered around the country taking shots of the rural and indigenous people she met. Her lens conveyed the poorest aspects of Mexican culture with empathy and artistry that no other photographers of the time demonstrated. Inexplicably, for all its vast and varied geography, ethnicities, and societal classes, rivaling even China in terms of its photogenic diversity, there are very few photography books on Mexico, making The Edge of Time a timeless literary benchmark.