16 must-read nonfiction books like A Year in the Art World by Matthew Israel

Cover of A Year in the Art World by Matthew Israel

A Year in the Art World

By: Matthew Israel

3.71

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

An insider’s detailed chronicle of the inner workings of the contemporary art world. The world of c…

If you liked the nonfiction plot in A Year in the Art World by Matthew Israel , here is a list of 16 books like this:

Cover of The White Album by Joan Didion

1. The White Album

By: Joan Didion

4.05

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

First published in 1979, Joan Didion's The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermat… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's The White Album book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • nonfiction
"Somewhere between the Yolo Causeway and Vallejo it occurred to me that during the course of any given week I met too many people who spoke favorably about bombing power stations."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"I have trouble maintaining the basic notion that keeping promises matters in a world where everything I was taught seems beside the point. The point itself is increasingly obscure."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image..."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a disp…"

-Joan Didion, The White Album

Cover of Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

2. Slouching Towards Bethlehem

By: Joan Didion

4.19

Format: 238 pages, Paperback

The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's S… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • nonfiction
"Happiness is,' after all, a consumption ethic."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"There is a common superstition that “self-respect"

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Cover of 33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton

3. 33 Artists in 3 Acts

By: Sarah Thornton

3.77

Format: 448 pages, Paperback

This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with the world’s most important living artists to … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Thornton's 33 Artists in 3 Acts book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

By: Junot Díaz

3.89

Format: 335 pages, Hardcover

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghet… read more

Similar categories in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"You can't regret the life you didn't lead."

-Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"Like they say: los que menos corren, vuelan."

-Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"It's never the changes we want that change everything."

-Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"I might have no one in the world, but at least I’m free."

-Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Cover of Austerlitz by Anthea Bell, W.G. Sebald

5. Austerlitz

By: Anthea Bell , W.G. Sebald

4.67

Format: 48 pages, Paperback

In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with f… read more

Similar categories in Anthea Bell's Austerlitz book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

Cover of The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe

6. The Painted Word

By: Tom Wolfe

3.89

Format: 7 pages,

read more

Similar categories in Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
Cover of Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

7. Seven Days in the Art World

By: Sarah Thornton

3.45

Format: None pages, Paperback

Named one of the best art books of 2008 by The New York Timesand The Sunday Times[London]: "An inde… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Thornton's Seven Days in the Art World book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
Cover of A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich, Clifford Harper, None

8. A Little History of the World

By: E.H. Gombrich , Clifford Harper , None

4.11

Format: 284 pages, Hardcover

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich w… read more

Similar categories in E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • nonfiction

9. Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know

By: Emily Oster

4.15

Format: 130 pages,

What to Expect When You're Expectingmeets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist disproves standa… read more

Similar categories in Emily Oster's Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

10. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

By: None

4.50

Format: None pages, Hardcover

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a… read more

Similar categories in None's The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

11. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

By: Stephen Greenblatt

4.34

Format: 132 pages, Paperback

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work… read more

Similar categories in Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve: How the World Became Modern book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

Cover of Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

12. Tender Is the Night

By: F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.78

Format: 430 pages, Paperback

Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young… read more

Similar categories in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"My God,' he gasped, 'you're fun to kiss."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

"The price for his intactness was incompleteness."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

"But I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

"New friends can often have a better time together than old friends."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

13. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer

3.87

Format: 272 pages, Paperback

In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Wall Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists … read more

Similar categories in Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

Cover of Just Kids by Patti Smith

14. Just Kids

By: Patti Smith

4.21

Format: 262 pages, Hardcover

In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-befor… read more

Similar categories in Patti Smith's Just Kids book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • nonfiction
"There's always new stuff, that's for sure."

-Patti Smith, Just Kids

"Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?"

-Patti Smith, Just Kids

"I knew he didn't love me, but I adored him anyway."

-Patti Smith, Just Kids

"Christ was a man worthy to rebel against, for he was rebellion itself."

-Patti Smith, Just Kids

Cover of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

15. Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

By: Claire Dederer

3.79

Format: 257 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, … read more

Similar categories in Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • nonfiction
"Biography used to be something you sought out, yearned for, actively pursued. Now it falls on your head all day long."

-Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

Cover of Shy by Max Porter

16. Shy

By: Max Porter

3.63

Format: 136 pages, Hardcover

A novel about guilt, rage, imagination, and boyhood, about being lost in the dark and learning you’… read more

Similar categories in Max Porter's Shy book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"He could learn to speak this language: night-end."

-Max Porter, Shy

"He feels colossally sad. Blisteringly sad. Almost ecstatically sad."

-Max Porter, Shy

"Shy said It's our music, coming out of our shit towns, it's not from Staten Island or Seattle or Detroit, it's from Walsall and Watford. Shaun and his mate Andy burst out laughing and Andy did a sque…"

-Max Porter, Shy

"He smells of pond. Everything smells of pond. He feels like he could sniff his way into individual microbes, earthy worming growgreen liquid stink, newts and shoots, silty, fruity, and as he walks he…"

-Max Porter, Shy

Cover of The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

17. The Yellow House

By: Sarah M. Broom

3.90

Format: 376 pages, Hardcover

In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhoo… read more

Similar categories in Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • nonfiction
"We own what belongs to us whether we claim it or not."

-Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

"Absences allow us one power over them. They do not speak a word. We say of them what we want. Still, they hover, pointing fingers at our backs."

-Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

"...the house was not tethered to its foundation, that what held the house to its foundation of sill on piers, wood on bricks, was the weight of us all in the house, the weight of the house itself, th…"

-Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

"When the house fell down, it can be said, something in me opened up. Cracks help a house resolve internally its pressures and stresses, my engineer friend had said. Houses provide a frame that bears …"

-Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

Cover of The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

18. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

By: Michael Finkel

3.97

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the worl… read more

Similar categories in Michael Finkel's The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
"Museums are secular churches . . . and to steal there is blasphemous."

-Michael Finkel, The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

Cover of Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz

19. Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

By: Eve Babitz

4.10

Format: 178 pages, Hardcover

Eve Babitz captured the voluptuous quality of L.A. in the1960s in a wildly original, totally unique… read more

Similar categories in Eve Babitz's Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"The only time men fall in love with roses is on douche commercials."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"...chivalry was just another nefarious masculine scheme to keep women in their place."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"Well, who is he?' I asked, the first time I saw Mary with his glazed expression. 'Money,' Mary said."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"It's very easy to stand L.A., which is why it's almost inevitable that all sorts of ideas get entertained."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

Cover of Stay True by Hua Hsu

20. Stay True

By: Hua Hsu

4.03

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for se… read more

Similar categories in Hua Hsu's Stay True book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • nonfiction
"My parents are great, I said. Unbelievably non-stereotypical."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"The first generation thinks about survival; the ones that follow tell the stories."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"You were describing people we had not yet met, maybe people we ourselves would become."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"It was a sign of personal growth, I thought to myself, that I could be friends with someone who liked Pearl Jam this much."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

Cover of Kala by Colin Walsh

21. Kala

By: Colin Walsh

3.99

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

A gripping literary page-turner from a rising Irish talent in which former friends, estranged for t… read more

Similar categories in Colin Walsh's Kala book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"Vapers are cunt wands,' Donna snaps."

-Colin Walsh, Kala

"I just want to switch myself off. Disconnect from everything."

-Colin Walsh, Kala

"So much of the night's vague. A film strip with half the frames missing."

-Colin Walsh, Kala

"Who drinks a decaf cappuccino? Be honest with yourself and get a cup of warm milk."

-Colin Walsh, Kala

Cover of Termush by Sven Holm

22. Termush

By: Sven Holm

3.31

Format: 119 pages, Paperback

Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apoca… read more

Similar categories in Sven Holm's Termush book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"An inspired lie could be preferred to a malignant truth."

-Sven Holm, Termush

"I must ask myself whether I am not colouring what I see with my own views."

-Sven Holm, Termush

"- I do have some faith in democracy, but I don't think that this vote can be regarded as a matter of course as democratic. The voters knew too little about the alternatives. - They are always Ill-inf…"

-Sven Holm, Termush

Cover of The Late Americans by Brandon  Taylor

23. The Late Americans

By: Brandon Taylor

3.38

Format: 303 pages, Hardcover

A deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads In the shared and private sp… read more

Similar categories in Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

Cover of We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle  Hart

24. We Do What We Do in the Dark

By: Michelle Hart

3.54

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A novel about a young woman's life-altering affair with a much older, married woman. Mallory is … read more

Similar categories in Michelle Hart's We Do What We Do in the Dark book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"I think that when you’re miserable, you often do things that extend that misery. There is something pleasing about misery that makes it seem as though time has stopped."

-Michelle Hart, We Do What We Do in the Dark

"Sometimes she suspected she had given the best of herself to the woman, as if the fire of her life had burned most intensely when she was eighteen, and she no longer had enough energy to keep rekindl…"

-Michelle Hart, We Do What We Do in the Dark

Cover of Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

25. Ripe

By: Sarah Rose Etter

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley startup, Cassie finds herself trapped in a … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Cover of How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz

26. How to Be an Artist

By: Jerry Saltz

3.94

Format: 144 pages, Hardcover

"Inspiration leaps off the pages from Jerry Saltz's new book on creativity. . . . This book is for … read more

Similar categories in Jerry Saltz's How to Be an Artist book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • nonfiction
"Bad art teaches you as much as good art, maybe more."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"Surely, your crappy art can fake out twelve stupid people. I've seen it done with one or two."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"For now, make something, learn something, and move on. Or you’ll be buried waist-deep in the big muddy of perfectionism."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"But doubt is a sign of faith: it tests and humbles you, allows newness into your life. Best of all, doubt banishes the stifling effect of certainty. Certainty kills curiosity and change."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

Cover of Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress

27. Sirens & Muses

By: Antonia Angress

3.94

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets o… read more

Similar categories in Antonia Angress's Sirens & Muses book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
"It was finally April, and the dogwoods were in bloom, flowerbeds everywhere lurid with color."

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

"They sat there in silence, each avoiding the other's gaze, and Karina felt the moment slipping away from her. "I think--" she began. "I think that the people we become infatuated with are the ones wh…"

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

"I think it's easy, when...when you're neglecting your own happiness, to inadvertently neglect the happiness of the people you love. It's sort of like you think you're being selfless or self-sacrifici…"

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

Cover of All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield

28. All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art

By: Orlando Whitfield

3.84

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

DECEPTION IS A FINE ART. When Orlando Whitfield first meets Inigo Philbrick, they are students d… read more

Similar categories in Orlando Whitfield's All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • nonfiction
Cover of A Year in the Art World by Matthew Israel

29. A Year in the Art World

By: Matthew Israel

3.71

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

An insider’s detailed chronicle of the inner workings of the contemporary art world. The world of c… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
Cover of Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel

30. Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art

By: Mary Gabriel

4.52

Format: 944 pages, Hardcover

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and… read more

Similar categories in Mary Gabriel's Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction
Cover of Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 by Peter Schjeldahl

31. Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018

By: Peter Schjeldahl

4.41

Format: 404 pages, Hardcover

Hot Cold Heavy Light collects 100 writings—some long, some short—that taken together forma group po… read more

Similar categories in Peter Schjeldahl's Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 book and Matthew Israel's A Year in the Art World

  • art
  • art history
  • nonfiction

12 Best art books like A Year in the Art World by Matthew Israel

Transform Your Habits

33 Artists in 3 Acts

Sarah Thornton

3.77

Transform Your Habits

The Painted Word

Tom Wolfe

3.89

Transform Your Habits

Seven Days in the Art World

Sarah Thornton

3.45

Transform Your Habits

Just Kids

Patti Smith

4.21

View all the books

7 Top book club books like The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

Transform Your Habits

Trust

Hernan Diaz

3.83

Transform Your Habits

Tom Lake

Ann Patchett

3.99

Transform Your Habits

The Covenant of Water

Abraham Verghese

4.45

Transform Your Habits

The Yellow House

Sarah M. Broom

3.90

View all the books

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