BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like Understanding Comics

Loved Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from art & photography, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    Ways of Seeing

    John Berger · 1972 · Art & Photography

    How we look at images, and who benefits; a short, radical book that changed art criticism.

  2. 2

    On Photography

    Susan Sontag · 1977 · Art & Photography

    What taking and viewing photographs does to us; a brilliant, much-quoted set of essays.

  3. 3

    The Story of Art

    Ernst Gombrich · 1950 · Art & Photography

    The most readable single-volume history of Western art; a classic introduction for everyone.

  4. 4

    Slouching Towards Bethlehem

    Joan Didion · 1968 · Essays

    Sharp, cool essays on 1960s America; the book that set the standard for the personal essay.

  5. 5

    The Fire Next Time

    James Baldwin · 1963 · Essays

    Two searing essays on race, faith and America; as urgent now as when they were written.

  6. 6

    Plein Ciel

    Danielle Steel · 1988 · Essays

    Wings is the story of a young woman who fights all the odds to fulfil her dreams. From her family's dusty farmland airstrip near Chicago, Cassie O'Malley would look at the planes shimmering in the moo

  7. 7

    Consider the Lobster

    David Foster Wallace · 2005 · Essays

    Restless, footnote-laden essays on everything from tennis to ethics; brilliant and exhausting in the best way.

  8. 8

    Louise Bourgeois

    Louise Bourgeois · 1981 · Essays

    Though known primarily for her sculpture, Louise Bourgeois has displayed a lifelong passion for drawing and considers it to be essential to her oeuvre. This exceptional book is the first to combine ov

  9. 9

    Men Explain Things to Me

    Rebecca Solnit · 2014 · Essays

    The essay collection that helped popularise a now-famous idea; sharp feminist criticism.

  10. 10

    Conformity and conflict

    James P. Spradley · 1971 · Essays

    ""Seeks to teach students the importance of culture and its influence on human life. By including examples of Western, North American cultures, the text makes cultural understanding and comparison mor

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