Since the publication in 1999 of Horacio Fernández’s Fotografía Pública: Photography in Print 1919–1939 and 2001 of Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, books on photobooks have experienced an explosion of popularity. Photo Book Photo List is unique in that it features not only great photobooks, but lists of the photobooks that have been formative to contemporary practicing photographers. The project is the culmination of Christopher McCall’s ongoing conversations with many photographers over the last fifteen years. Each provided a list of between eight and fourteen prized, cherished photobooks, sometimes annotated with notes or observations, and the artist Libby Black created a sculpture of one or more books on each list to illustrate it. A deliberately open-ended prompt allowed for surprises and purely personal reactions involving books that are perhaps more obscure, or a stretch definitionally. The artists were encouraged to ransack their libraries (and their memories) in search of the raw materials that have shaped their own ongoing attempts at photographic alchemy. The results prove that certain books have clearly had a recurring impact on particular generations. And while it is great to see which of their predecessors’ books photographers admire, perhaps more delightful is the discovery of which books they cite by their peers and contemporaries. The volume features fifty-four lists, bookended by essays by Christopher McCall and the writer and curator Vince Aletti, formerly the art editor and photo critic at the Village Voice and current contributor to the New Yorker.