Eight Books to Start the Year with Culture

A curated selection of eight books published in 2025 offers critical perspectives on photography, design, video games, dance, television, and urban transformation. Bootsy Holler's "Making it" documents the post-grunge Seattle music scene from 1992 to 2008 through intimate, behind-the-scenes photographs. Silvia Camporesi's "Una foto è una foto è una foto" provides a guide to reading contemporary photography, from analog to digital. "Lella e Massimo Vignelli e Feudi di San Gregorio," edited by Domitilla Dardi, examines the 25-year design collaboration between the Vignellis and the Campania wine estate. "Atlante dei videogiochi" by Andrea Cuman and Cristian Confalonieri maps 50 years of gaming through 100 key titles and 600 cross-references. Rebecca Solnit's "Un fiume di ombre" uses Eadweard Muybridge as a lens to explore 19th-century America's technological acceleration and its visual culture. Teresa Macrì's "Stato di incanto" traces the blurring boundaries between dance, non-dance, post-dance, and performance art from the Judson Dance Theater onward. "Carmelo Bene – Maurizio Costanzo. Nessuno contro tutti," edited by Annalisa Presicce, reproduces two episodes of the Italian talk show "Uno contro tutti" from 1994 and 1995, analyzing Bene's subversive use of television. Fabrizio Bellomo's "Concrete Albania," curated by Elton Koritari, documents 20 years of Albanian urban transformation through the lens of concrete, from socialist relics to turbo-capitalist skyscrapers.