We are thrilled to announce this year's Best Books featuring the selections by 30 personalities from across the photo world. Each year the photo-eye staff comes together to nominate contributors who we ask to pick up to 10 books they feel were the best of the year. On the most basic level a photobook functions as a vehicle for the display of photography, but a well-executed photobook is a work of art in its own right. From binding to paper to printing, sequencing, layout and design, each element of a photobook works to create a unique reading experience, and when done well, inspires a new level of engagement.

We love photobooks and for us, Best Books is a celebration of the amazingly diverse and expressive nature of the form. We are excited to share with you some of the year's best, books that display innovative design, remarkable storytelling and some really great images.

The contributors are:


This year we're doing things little bit differently — over the next week we'll release a few lists each day instead of publishing them all at once as we've done in previous years. We hope this method will make the Best Books of 2013 a bit more digestible while also creating a week of discoveries. As the new lists are published, we'll add a link to the contributor's names listed above.

We kick things off today with our list of top picks — the 26 most selected books of the year. We'll begin publishing individual lists tomorrow. And we're always interested to see books that may have been missed — we hope you'll share your picks in the comments.

Rasen Kaigan/Album By Lieko Shiga AKAAKA   11 Selections	A Period of Juvenile Prosperity By Mike Brodie Twin Palms Publishers   8 Selections	Holy Bible By Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin MACK   8 Selections
Dalston Anatomy By Lorenzo Vitturi Self Publish Be Happy   7 Selections	Two Rivers By Carolyn Drake Self-Published    6 Selections	Ametsuchi By Rinko Kawauchi Aperture   5 Selections
Hotel Oracle By Jason Fulford The Soon Institute   5 Selections	The Canaries By Thilde Jensen LENA Publications   5 Selections	The Pigs By Carlos Spottorno RM & Phree   5 Selections
Excerpts from Silver Meadows By Todd Hido Nazraeli Press   4 Selections	Garry Winogrand By Garry Winogrand Yale University Press   4 Selections	Scarti By Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin Trolley   4 Selections
Almost There  By Aleix Plademunt  MACK / Ca l'Isidret Edicions   4 Selections	Food By Henk Wildschut Post Editions 3 Selections	Karma By Oscar Monzon RVB / Dalpine    3 Selections
Lucas* By Eric Stephanian Self-Published 3 Selections *This title is out-of-print. Email us to be notified if copies become available.	Macquenoise By Pierre Liebaert Le Caillou Bleu   3 Selections	New York Arbor By Mitch Epstein Steidl   3 Selections
Sergio Larrain By Sergio Larrain Aperture   3 Selections	She Dances on Jackson By Vanessa Winship HCB Foundation/MACK   3 Selections	Silvermine By Thomas Sauvin Archive of Modern Conflict   3 Selections
Swell By Mateusz Sarello Instytut Kultury Wizualnej 3 Selections	The Fourth Wall By Max Pinckers Self-Published   3 Selections	Top Secret:Images from the Stasi Archives  By Simon Menner  Hatje Cantz   3 Selections
We Make the Path by Walking By Paul Gaffney Self-Published   3 Selections	The Secret History of Khava Gaisanova and The North Caucasus By Rob Hornstra & Arnold van Bruggen The Sochi Project   3 Selections