Books to read for Christmas: our photography selection

1 Looks, a century of photography from Brassaï to Martin Parr, under the direction of Quentin Bajac

For its 70th anniversary, Fnac wanted to mark the occasion with a photographic book looking back on a century of images. By highlighting its photographic collection, the brand is celebrating 100 years of creation through the lens of the greatest photographers. Conducted under the direction of Quentin Bajac, the photobook returns in the form of chapters on major themes and fascinating texts which allow us to explore a variety of images and periods, taken in color, or in black and white.

Through its refined design, Regards (Gallimard) allows each reader to delve into their own interpretation of the image in order to understand how, through their work, photographers managed to capture a moment, a subject, or a point of view. Between art and history, Regards is one of the essential photo Books to place under the tree this year.

2 Superfacialby Audrey Tautou

You knew her as an actress but did you know that Audrey Tautou is also a photographer? If the artist had presented her first photographic work in 2017 during the Rencontres d'Arles, she published, in November 2024, her first photo book called Superfacial. In it, the photographer questions the art of self-portraiture and questions the relationship to one's image and one's body with lightness and humor.

Imagined as a confrontation between artifice and reality, Superfacial is also accompanied by texts in the form of confidences from the legendary actress of the Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain (2001) and of Coco before Chanel (2009), who continues to question his notoriety and status through this pink book.

3 Family Tiesby Tina Barney

Until January 2025, the work of photographer Tina Barney is celebrated at the heart of the Jeu de Paume. Thus, for those who would like to continue exploring his universe, or who would not be able to attend the exhibition presented for a few more weeks in Paris, the artist's stagings have fortunately been compiled in the book photographic, Family Ties.

In it, the American questions family rituals between family setting and intergenerational analysis. A work through the lens which has interested him for more than 40 years, and which allows us to return to pieces of life, as well as eras.

4 Room 207by Jean-Michel André

This year, Jean-Michel André won the Nadar Gens d’images 2024 prize thanks to his photographic book, Room 207. It is a unique work that the artist offers in this work. Through photographs, archive images, and objects that mattered to him, Jean-Michel André returns to the assassination of his father, killed on the way to vacation in 1983.

As a way to ward off trauma, this dense and comprehensive book questions mourning, nostalgia, but also the notion of reparation through a photographic ensemble that is as poignant as it is ghostly. More than a photo book, it is a true artistic and personal novel that Jean-Michel André invites us to discover.

5 Last Paradisethe Kourtney Roy et Mathias Delplanque

Published by Filigranes editions, Last Paradise compiles sound and image in a beautiful book which narrates the fictional journey of an extravagant woman through a seaside landscape swept by cataclysmic elements. For this multimedia work, Kourtney Roy and Mathias Delplanque chose the Adriatic coast and its desolate lands to tell the unique journey of their heroine; an interesting choice which contrasts with the excitement that we find in these places during the summer period.

Between dream and reality, Last Paradise is structured like a photographic novel that questions the passage of time, nostalgia for a lost world, but also our relationship with the environment. A dense story, and a truly unique photographic project to place under the tree which comes with a vinyl.