Mrs Deane's list of Best Photobooks of 2008 Photography

Now that the excitement about the end of year 'best photo books of 2008' enumerations has died down in an ultimate culmination at photoeye, I can safely launch my own retrospective of books which excited or inspired us last year. Since our means are too limited to buy many books - let alone newly published ones - , our selection will differ in many aspects from the usual lists. Let's start with this odd publication kindly loaned to us by a local colleague, who shares our love for books where the images are glued in by hand. "Fair play with Fina - soccer rules in word and image" is the rather unexciting title (especially unexciting if you are no soccer fan) of this strangely long and narrow (33 x 11cm) publication dating from the seventies. Read for more ...

first catalog from the Otto mail order company - source

Actually, this is not a book we own, it's not even a proper book and it certainly wasn't freshly published last year, yet I wanted it to have a place on my list of best photo books of 2008, as this is the year we first encountered it. The Otto mail order company, established in 1949, is a typical example of the famed Wirtschaftswunder, the rebuilding of the German economy upon the ruins of the second World War. This first catalog had an edition of merely 300 pieces and consisted of 14 hand bound pages with 28 pasted in photographs of shoes. Hard to believe today that this modest publication was the basis and beginning of the success of what grew out to be a giant industry - and that in the following year the company already had a turnover of 1 million german Marks. Read for more ...