March Staff Picks

A new photobook revisits downtown legend Marcia Resnick’s playful, political, unruly photography. It features essays that make the case for her status as “an artist’s artist” who made photography matter in new ways, and some really great portraits of people like Susan Sontag and John Belushi. —Sam

 

If art world controversies have left you reeling recently, here’s a book for you. Farah Nayeri has written a smart, measured guide for making sense of how social movements and everyday people have begun to challenge the elite monopoly on power in art institutions—and what that means for art itself.

 

P.S. We hosted a launch event with the author and arts journalist Linda Yablonsky and you can watch their conversation here. —Christine

 

 

 

A wildly virtuosic novel about an aristocratic British woman who shacks up with her husband’s mistress in Paris during the 1848 Revolution. It required my total attention, and rewarded me with riches on every page. Read it if you like thrilling denouements, wry lesbian inversions of the Victorian novel, the sweep of history. —Christine

 

 

 

A novel-in-verse from the acclaimed poet/classicist/translator, Autobiography of Red is a unique and affecting coming of age tale that blurs the literal and metaphorical. The teenage monster Geryon, suffering abuse at the hands of his brother, seeks solace in photography and a relationship with Herakles. A synopsis does not do this book justice, and I will only say I cannot recommend it more highly. —David

 

An important literary step forward, opening the doors to future queer Latinx authors. Although hyper-specific through Gomez’s personal journey, these beautiful kaleidoscopic insights into a young writer's life open up room for more collective empathy and joy. —Issa