11 Brilliant Art And Culture Books To Curl Up With This Winter

From Chris Levine’s luminous portraits and Kate Bryan and James Payne’s accessible guides to enjoying art, to the first English translation of Sachiko Kashiwaba’s enchanting novel that inspired Spirited Away, these eleven brilliant books offer thoughtful, transporting reads for the colder months. Whether you’re an art lover, culture seeker, or curious reader looking for something beautiful and enriching, this list delivers your essential winter reading companions.

This curated selection of eleven art and Culture books to read this winter includes; Inner Light: The Portraiture of Chris Levine by Helen Chislett; How to Art by Kate Bryan with illustrations by David Shrigley; How to Live An Artful Life by Katie Hessel; Great Art Explained by James Payne; Amy Newman Barnett Newman: Here (Princeton); With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories by Nicole Nehrig; Limelight by David Koppel; H is for Hawk (Folio Society); The Village Beyond the Mist; Klara and the Sun, (Folio Society) and The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba.

Inner Light: The Portraiture of Chris Levine

Inner Light is the first comprehensive monograph devoted to the work of Chris Levine, one of the most innovative and visionary light artists of our time. Written by Helen Chislett, with a foreword by Dr. Nicholas Cullinan OBE, the book celebrates Levine’s extraordinary ability to fuse cutting-edge technology with a meditative, almost spiritual sense of stillness. The result is a body of work that redefines the possibilities of portraiture and the experience of looking itself. uses light not only as a tool, but as a medium for transcendence.

This striking monograph celebrates Levine’s inventive use of light and technology to create portraits that don’t simply record likenesses but evoke presence and aura.

From his celebrated image of Queen Elizabeth II– Lightness of Being–through to portraits of the Dalai Lama, Sir Elton John, Grace Jones, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Gilbert and George and other icons of contemporary culture, Levine has transformed the art of contemporary portraiture. Each chapter offers an intimate glimpse into Levine’s creative process, revealing how he constructs an atmosphere of calm and contemplation for his sitters—an energy that radiates through his finished works.

Inner Light explores Levine’s innovative use of light and technology combined with a deep spirituality, collecting Levine’s most resonant works and presenting them with elegance and clarity. The book also offers insight into Levin’s large-scale installations, public art and commercial collaborations. Inner Light offers a great insight into Levine’s work at the intersection of art, photography, technology and spirituality.

How To Art by Kate Bryan with illustrations by David Shrigley (Hutchinson Heinemann)

Kate Bryan–art historian, broadcaster and curator of Soho House’s global art collection–has authored a third book (following The Art of Love and Bright Stars). How to Art sets out on a mission to demystify art and invite people into the gilded cage of the art world.

Original artworks by David Shrigley are the perfect accompaniment to Bryan’s texts. Bryan and Shrigley are both great at democratising art and making it more accessible and digestible, Bryan through her affable presenting with Sky Arts and Shrigley through his cartoon-like artworks with humorous musings such as Make Some Art. You Will Feel Better.

In Bryan’s honest introduction to the book, she recalls starting out in the art world as an art history graduate and realising what an elitist world she had entered: “I did not grow up in a rarefied world. I went to a local comprehensive school and in a pre-internet age I did what everyone else did: played until dark in the street with my siblings and my neighbours…watched Tony Hart, the brilliant art teacher on the telly. After making it through university (I studied Art History), I started working at the British Museum, where I often felt completely out of place. I had zero connections to people already in the field, and no points of reference for how to be, day to day, when working in the art world.”

Bryan’s new book sets out to democratise art and remove the feeling of breaking into a secret club or gilded cage, instead inviting everybody to enjoy and engage with art without any social or monetary barriers. So How To Art offers advice on how to enjoy famous artworks such as the Mona Lisa, how to start an art collection, how to make a career as an artist, how to take children to an art gallery, and witty chapters such as how to make your dog more cultural (tip: by giving it an arty name such as Rothko). If Bryan’s mission with this book is to make art more accessible, then her mission is truly accomplished.

Katy Hessel How to Live An Artful Life (Hutchinson Heinemann)

It’s been a decade since 21-year-old Katy Hessel took the literary and art world by storm with her best-selling book The Great Women Artists, which was a brilliant and long overdue feminist rebuke to Gombrich’s The Story of Art – a book that only mentioned male artists. Fast forward ten years and women artists have regained control of the narrative in contemporary art, with more women featured in museum shows and fetching higher prices at auction. Perhaps in a way helped by Hessel’s subversion of the male view of art history.

Hessel’s new book How to Live An Artful Life represents a new direction for the author, who sets out to offer 365 inspiring quotes and ideas from artists to take art lovers through the year. She suggests that anyone can invite creativity into their daily life, whether they frequents galleries and museums or not. The concept is that anyone can spend five minutes each day–away from the temptation of screens and AI–doing something creative. Rooted in the knowledge that being creative and engaging with art is a way to destress and unwind. Hessel includes musings from acclaimed women artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid and Louise Bourgeois, collected from books, interviews and conversations. How to Live An Artful Life is a great resource to dip into for daily creative inspiration, particularly during the upcoming dark winter months.

Great Art Explained: The Stories Behind the World’s Greatest Masterpieces by James Payne (Thames & Hudson)

James Payne has built up a big following on his YouTube channel Great Art Explained, by making art more accessible and demystifying some of the world’s most celebrated works of art. Payne’s engaging new book Great Art Explained invites readers to traverse 30 masterpieces from around the world and ask: what makes them truly “great”? Each chapter delves into the artwork, the artist’s life and wider context. Iconic works such as Monet’s Water Lilies, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Hilma af Klint’s altarpieces and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed are treated with a succinct explanation and evident passion. An ideal read for art-lovers seeking a read that is both informative and lively. Great Art Explained is a cultural tonic for art lovers, which offers a deeper understanding of great works of art from around the world.

Barnett Newman: Here by Amy Newman (Princeton University Press)

Barnett Newman: Here is a definitive new biography from Amy Newman charting the life and work of Abstract Expressionist giant Barnett Newman. Drawing on previously unpublished sources from Newman’s archive, the book offers fresh insight into the man and the cityscape that shaped him. If you’re drawn to post-war art, the city of New York as a creative terrain, or the intersection of artist-life and myth, this one stands out as a substantial winter read.

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) was a founding member of the abstract expressionist movement and contemporary of iconic artist Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. Newman’s output was relatively minimal, and he left behind only 118 finished paintings, six sculptures, and 83 acknowledged drawings. Yet his impact was such that he is often regarded as the greatest painter to have emerged after the Second World War. Barnett Newman is the definitive biography of a charismatic New Yorker who created an art of the sublime by defying the rules.

This landmark book features original research conducted over decades, using scores of interviews, oral histories, and previously unseen correspondence to paint a richly textured portrait of a creative sage who became an exemplar of the artist-citizen. Born in New York to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, he grandly aspired to involve himself in every detail of the city’s life. He was a crusader for the civil service, ran against La Guardia for mayor, worked as a teacher, wrote poetry, criticism, and manifestos, produced political plays, and promoted other artists—all before painting a mature work of his own in his early forties.

Drawing on previously unpublished sources gleaned from full access to Newman’s archives, Amy Newman’s landmark account presents a portrait of a maverick who influenced a generation and is now considered one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.

With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories by Nicole Nehrig (W.W. Norton & Co)

With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories, is a rich and intimate exploration of how women have used textile work to create meaningful lives, from ancient mythology to our current moment. Psychologist and knitter Nicole Nehrig delves into the myriad ways that art forms such as knitting, sewing and embroidery are liberating for women.

Spanning continents and centuries, Nehrig brings together remarkable stories of women, from an eighteenth-century Quaker boarding school that used embroidered samplers to teach girls maths and geography to the Quechua weavers working to preserve and revive Incan traditions today, and from the Miao women of southern China who pass down their histories in elaborate “story cloths” to a mid-century British women’s postal art exchange.

Throughout history, textiles have been a way for women to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas and convey powerful messages of self-expression and political protest.

With Her Own Hands is a celebration of women who have woven their own stories and created objects of beauty and significance. A perfect book for lovers of handcrafted textiles with an interest in women’s histories.

Limelight by David Koppel

A different kind of culture book: photographer David Koppel captures the electric heart of 1980s London club culture in Limelight. With previously unseen images of cultural icons who frequented the London nightclub–including Boy George, Beastie Boys, George Michael, Leigh Bowery, Iggy Pop, Bananarama, Derek Jarman and Malcolm McLaren–the book offers a vivid slice of nightlife, image-making and celebrity. London in the 1980s was a city on the brink of change during Thatcher’s era, defined by bankers, big bouffant hair and a burgeoning New Romantic music scene. Stars of the day flocked to Limelight, where Bob Geldof had his stag do and King Charles even partied there.

Koppel was one of the original paparazzi on the London social scene, known for a natural, spontaneous approach to image-making. He lit his photos in the darkened club with an unusual method of asking his subjects to hold a lit match in front of their faces. Koppel opens his archive for the first time to iconic images captured during his time as Limelight’s house photographer. Koppel reminisces: “I said I didn’t like nightclubs, I didn’t drink, I wasn’t interested in celebrities, and I was a ‘serious’ photographer. They said, ‘We’ll pay you for one night.’ That one night lasted a year and paved the way for a decade on Fleet Street.”

For those in search of a cultural read where music, photography and visual aesthetics intersect, this is a lively and evocative book capturing an exciting moment in pop cultural history.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Folio Society)

A modern masterpiece of memoir and nature writing, vividly illustrated to reflect its raw beauty and emotional power. A special Folio Society edition of H is for Hawk, beautifully illustrated by Chris Wormell, gives renewed prestige to Helen Macdonald’s acclaimed memoir. The book tracks Macdonald’s journey through grief after her father’s death as she trains a goshawk, weaving together nature writing, memoir and biography. The Folio edition’s design and production make it a treat for book-lovers and culture-seekers alike. In a season of introspection, reading H is for Hawk is to ponder wildness, loss, and redemption in beautifully crafted prose.

The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba (Restless Books)

From the Batchelder Award–winning author and translator behind Temple Alley Summer and The House of the Lost on the Cape comes The Village Beyond the Mist, the enchanting novel that first inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. When sixth-grader Lina follows a gust of wind deep into the forest, she stumbles upon Misty Valley, a hidden village where centaurs roam the streets and gnomes trade spellbooks and enchanted sweets. What begins as a reluctant summer adventure soon unfolds into a journey of wonder and self-discovery, as Lina learns that even in a world of magic, courage and kindness are the most powerful forces of all.

First published in Japan in 1975 and now available in English for the first time, Sachiko Kashiwaba’s classic tale radiates warmth, imagination, and quiet wisdom. With its nostalgic charm and gentle magical realism, The Village Beyond the Mist captures the timeless spirit of childhood curiosity and the bittersweet beauty of growing up. A true treasure of Japanese literature, it will captivate readers young and old, especially those who have ever dreamed of stepping through the mist into another world. The Village Beyond the Mist inspired Spirited Away, and is brimming with nostalgic charm. The book’s themes of adaptation, wonder and growth make it a refreshing winter read for anyone craving something lyrical and transporting. Especially for art and culture readers open to stories that blend the everyday and the fantastical.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Folio Society)

Folio Society’s new edition of Kazuo Ishiguro’s celebrated novel Klara and The Sun is beautifully illustrated by Isabel Seliger. A profound meditation on love, humanity and technology, Klara and The Sun views our rapidly changing world through the eyes of an AI friend.

Set in a not-quite-future world, the novel is narrated by an Artificial Friend (AF) named Klara and explores themes of humanity, connection, artificial intelligence and hope. The Folio edition with illustrated pages, special cloth binding and metallic finishes, elevates the novel beyond reading into the realm of beautiful object. If you’re seeking a winter book that mixes speculative fiction with cultural reflection and stunning production, this is a standout.