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Best Art & Design Books
Books about art and design range from scholarly monographs to accessible surveys, from artists' own accounts of their practice to cultural histories of visual movements. The best of them make visible what is usually wordless — the logic of a composition, the grammar of a typeface, the cultural conditions that produced an aesthetic style. John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed how a generation thought about looking; Robert Hughes's The Shock of the New mapped modernism with polemical clarity; Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness brought philosophy to the built environment. These books teach us to see, and seeing is the beginning of understanding.
50 titles ranked · Scored across 40+ editorial sources
#1
literary-fiction
Don Quijote de la Mancha
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra· 1600
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score55/100
#2
literary-fiction
La Divina Commedia
Dante Alighieri· 1472
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score55/100
#3
literary-fiction
Анна Каренина
Лев Толстой· 1876
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score55/100
#4
literary-fiction
Twice-Told Tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne· 1800
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score55/100
#5
literary-fiction
Rose Madder
Stephen King· 1995
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score55/100
#6
biography-memoir
Picasso
Pablo Picasso· 1926
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score55/100
#7
literary-fiction
Corinne
Germaine de Staël· 1786
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#8
literary-fiction
Nine Stories
J. D. Salinger· 1948
Library Journal
Editorial Score50/100
#9
literary-fiction
The tragedy of Macbeth
William Shakespeare· 1790
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score50/100
#10
literary-fiction
The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
Sax Rohmer· 1914
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score50/100
#11
classic-literature
Crucial Instances
Edith Wharton· 1901
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score50/100
#12
classic-literature
Signs of change
William Morris· 1888
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#13
classic-literature
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Crockett Johnson· 1976
Library Journal
Editorial Score50/100
#14
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biography-memoir
Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan shozō Meijiki kankō tosho maikuro-ban shūsei
Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan (Japan)· 1991
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#15
biography-memoir
Paul Klee
Paul Klee· 1930
Kirkus Reviews
Editorial Score50/100
#16
biography-memoir
Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Feininger· 1950
Library Journal
Editorial Score50/100
#17
biography-memoir
Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera· 1929
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#18
psychology
Creative and mental growth
Viktor Lowenfeld· 1947
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#19
travel-exploration
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier· 1938
Library Journal
Editorial Score50/100
#20
art-design
Vision and design
Roger Eliot Fry· 1920
Publishers Weekly
Editorial Score50/100
#21
art-design
Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler
Georg Gottfried Dehio· 1924
Library Journal
Editorial Score50/100
#22
art-design
Old New York (False Dawn / New Year's Day / Old Maid / Spark)
Edith Wharton· 1924
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#23
art-design
L'art moderne
Joris-Karl Huysmans· 1883
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#24
art-design
Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines
Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville· 1766
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#25
art-design
Lexique des termes d'art
Jules Adeline· 1880
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#26
art-design
Aristotle's theory of poetry and fine art
Samuel Henry Butcher· 1895
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#27
art-design
The two paths, Love's meinie
John Ruskin· 1800
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#28
art-design
Sesame and lilies, Unto this last-the queen of the air, The storm cloud of the nineteenth century
John Ruskin· 1871
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#29
art-design
The cabinet-maker and upholsterer's drawing-book
Thomas Sheraton· 1791
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#30
art-design
La theorie et la pratique du jardinage
A.-J Dézallier d'Argenville· 1709
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#31
art-design
Woodward's architecture, landscape gardening and rural art
George E. Woodward· 1867
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#32
art-design
Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVI siècle
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc· 1800
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#33
art-design
Histoire d'une maison
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc· 1873
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#34
art-design
Entretiens sur l'architecture
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc· 1863
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#35
art-design
Quattro libri dell'architettura
TETRIS· 1570
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#36
art-design
Woodward's national architect
George E. Woodward· 1869
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#37
art-design
The city and country builder's and workman's treasury of designs
Batty Langley· 1740
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#38
art-design
The builder's jewel, or, The youth's instructor and workman's remembrancer
Batty Langley· 1758
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#39
art-design
The builder's jewel
Batty Langley· 1741
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#40
art-design
Il ferro nell'arte italiana
Giulio Ferrari· 1900
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#41
art-design
The American builder's companion
Asher Benjamin· 1811
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#42
art-design
Parallèle de l'architecture antique avec la moderne
Fréart, Roland sieur de Chambray· 1664
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#43
art-design
The Englishman's castle
John Edwards Gloag· 1944
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#44
art-design
The genius of architecture, or, The analogy of that art with our sensations
Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières· 1780
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#45
art-design
The architectural history of the University of Cambridge and of the colleges of Cambridge and Eton
Willis, Robert· 1886
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#46
art-design
The modern builder's assistant
William Halfpenny· 1757
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#47
art-design
Patents for inventions
Great Britain. Patent Office.· 1870
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#48
art-design
Animal locomotion
Eadweard Muybridge· 1887
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#49
art-design
The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes, Volume 1
Francis Trevelyan Miller· 1911
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
#50
art-design
Twelve million black voices
Richard Wright· 1941
Notable Work
Editorial Score46/100
