Alice Prin, otherwise known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was the queen of 1920s bohemian Paris. She was unmistakable in a crowd, with her black bobbed hair and joie de vivre. Kiki was not only a model – she was the model, posing for Man Ray, Cocteau, Soutine, and others. Her evenings were spent as a nightclub singer, her days poised for art, and her life became a testament to spontaneity and creativity. Kiki de Montparnasse is a graphic novel biography that portrays the highs and many lows of Alice Prin’s all too short life.

To see Kiki and her world in real life, follow the graphic novel with the coffee table essay and photography book, Kiki’s Paris.

Imagine the pattering of paws against wet cement, a whoosh of air, and a dog – say a shiny, black Labrador – leaping into a pool of water after her favorite tennis ball. Then comes the splash of her belly against the blue. Her face submerges. Her jaws grasp at the ball in an aquatic dance of determination. This is when Seth Casteel would take a picture, when his canine subject was at her most joyfully dynamic. Dog lovers beware, you are bound to fall in love with the exuberant photography of Casteel in his first coffee table book of over 80 paddling, leaping, water-loving portraits, Underwater Dogs.

13,997 Japanese Americans passed through Heart Mountain internment camp from August 1942 – September 1945. Bill Mambo and his family were in the thousands forced to live at the base of Heart Mountain in northern Wyoming. Mambo captured their daily lives on Kodachrome film and, though he was an amateur, the images Mambo captured show that, “However broad their smiles, the people in these pictures were living interrupted lives, or shattered ones. The music of their bright dances and parades masked a hum of dissent and discontent.” Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Images of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II, edited by Eric L. Muller, expresses the intimate details and hard truths of wartime living.

Errol Morris, the award-winning documentary director of The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, wants people to ask themselves “What is the truth of the photograph?” Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography is a collection of conversational essays where Morris analyzes the truth behind and psychological effects of four photographs. His subjects are photos from the Civil War, the Crimean War, the Great Depression, and Abu Ghraib, and his essays feel like detail-orientated detective stories. This is not a book about the beauty of photography. It is a meditation on navigating a culture of mass-image-manipulation with questions like “What is the difference between journalism and propaganda?” and “What is the difference between accuracy and truth?”

The first commercially successful photobooth was created by Anatol Josepho. It was placed in New York City on Broadway in 1925 and was an instant hit. In the first six months, 280,000 people stood in line to use the coin-operated, ten-minute photo machine. In American Photobooth by Näkki Goranin, the history of the photobooth is recounted with pictures of its creation and use. Can’t get enough? Babbette Hines’s book, Photobooth, displays hundreds of pictures from the 1920′s through the 1980′s. The stylistic variation of the snapshot is continued in Photobooth:  The Art of the Automatic Portrait, by Raynal Pellicer, which shows not only the common man but celebrities (like John Lennon, Elvis, Ginsberg, and John F. Kennedy) using photobooths.

“A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery,” said Nelson Algren in Nonconformity:  Writing on Writing. Algren spoke of his own experience as an outsider, but many profound works of art have been created with brutal honesty and a process that borders on social callousness. This rang true for Art Shay who regularly photographed subjects on the sly, as exampled in his photo essay (and failed, pitched article to Life Magazine) turned bleak coffee table book, Nelson Algren’s Chicago. Join Algren’s tour of the underbelly of the Second City circa 1949 as Shay captures the deadbeats, the downtrodden and the working poor that became Algren’s deeply loved, literary inspirations.

“While historians have used literary documents to depict Blacks as helpless subjects, photographs allow us to see many of them as confident human beings. Occupation, income, education, and similar variables are important for assessing accomplishments and status…” said social historian Douglas Daniels in the introduction to Deborah Willis’ phenomenal photographic history, Reflections in Black. Willis is a former Guggenheim and MacArthur fellow who curated the exhibition, Reflections in Black, at the Smithsonian Institute. This exhibition, which has now become a book with almost 600 high-quality photos from luminaries such as James Presley Ball, James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks and Carrie Mae Weems, expands cultural awareness and historical consciousness of the African-American experience in the United States.

Weddings are a Big Deal. In today’s photoshopped culture, brides feel like they have to be perfect. TV shows like Say Yes to the Dress have emphasized that, sure, a wedding is all about love and stuff – but really, look at that dress! Did you see what the bride was wearing? Edwina Ehrman’s heavily illustrated coffee table book, The Wedding Dress, explores the evolution of the wedding dress from 1700 until present day. This photographic fashion history is an extension of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Unveiled exhibition. If you can’t make it to the V&A in London, but still want to see bold, beautiful and sometimes extravagantly odd bridal fashions, The Wedding Dress is for you.