The 6th Floor Blog: How to Read Like an Eclectic Picture Person

Amy Kellner is a photo editor at the magazine.

Books I'm reading now:

"Hallucinations," by Oliver Sacks.

Whoever left this press copy on the giveaway pile doesn't know what she's missing. Especially the chapter on hallucinogenic drugs, in which Sacks describes his own experience, in the 1960s, with a drug called Artane. The drug is used to treat Parkinson's, but in high doses it can cause delirium. Sacks took 20 pills and then had a delightful conversation with a spider in his kitchen "mostly on rather technical matters of analytic philosophy." I love Oliver Sacks, I love bizarre hallucinations and I love this book.

"Grace: A Memoir," by Grace Coddington.

After seeing "The September Issue," how could you not love Grace Coddington? She's such a kook. And she has a whole chapter on her cats!

"How to Cook Everything: The Basics," by Mark Bittman.

A few months ago, I was put in charge of photos for the magazine's food and drink columns. I like food, and I like photos of food, but I am the worst cook in the world. I can't even boil an egg. One time, I tried to make hard-boiled eggs. I put the eggs in water, turned the stove on, went into the other room and promptly forgot about it. An hour later I heard a strange rattling, popping noise. I ran back into the kitchen and saw the pot scorched, with black, smoking eggshells crusted to the bottom, looking like evil alien monster pods from a horror movie. I tried to pour cold water on it, but it made so much smoke that I panicked and threw the whole thing out the window. (I was on a low floor facing a courtyard, and I retrieved it later.)

This book, luckily, has a whole chapter on boiling eggs. I am thrilled to say that, with the aid of a very loud egg timer, I am now boiling eggs like a champ. Someday I hope to make an omelette.

Gather Journal, issue No. 2.

This is a fancy new biannual food journal with gorgeous photography. I'm pretty sure I will never be able to make leek and potato galette or maple semifreddo with faux bois cookies, but at least I now know what they look like, and they look beautiful.

Unread book on my bedside table that gnaws at my conscience:

"Camera Lucida," by Roland Barthes.

I've had this book on my nightstand for ages. Sure, I want to be all philosophical and semioticy about photography, and Barthes looks supersuave lighting his Gauloise in the photo on the back cover, but I'll never be able to remember the difference between the punctum and the studium. And actually the more I think about it, I kind of don't care.

Three books in my field that I highly recommend:

"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency," by Nan Goldin.

The first photo book I ever bought. I was obsessed with Goldin and her glamorous, tragic cast of characters, especially Cookie Mueller, whose writings I would also highly recommend. I still look at this book often and never tire of it.

"Like Us: Primate Portraits," by Robin Schwartz.

Before Schwartz began photographing her daughter with all kinds of animals (her work was featured in the magazine), she did this series of black and white portraits of monkeys and apes mostly kept as pets in people's home. Each photo is captioned with the primate's name (Squeaky, Vana, Bubba, Chastity, Melissa, Ping) and age. There are chimps dressed in diapers and toddler clothes, a spider monkey in overalls, a capuchin sitting on a house cat, a baboon grooming a poodle, an ape taking a bath. It sounds silly, but there is something haunting about these images. They look so human and so alien at the same time. I mean, look at this gibbon. It's like something out of "Eraserhead." My favorite photo is this one of Minnie, the 13-year-old stump-tailed macaque drinking a chocolate fudge soda through a straw. I'm not sure I can explain my fascination with this photo; it just haunts me. Maybe it's the look in her eyes. Maybe it's the Velamints.

"Common Sense," by Martin Parr.

Martin Parr photographs gross things and makes them beautiful. Maybe beautiful isn't the right word. He makes them intense, with saturated color and extreme close-ups of the tacky, comical objects that are all around us. Lipstick on teeth, old lady feet in pink fuzzy slippers, melted ice cream cones, cakes covered in sprinkles and icing, smiley faces, glitter nail polish, lunchmeat, bald heads, cheap toys. I suppose he's commenting on the trash of modern society, but I think it's more funny than it is mean.

Bonus: "The New History of Photography" by Michel Frizot.

If I have to recommend a photography book with actual words, this would be it. Big and heavy, and it starts all the way back in the 17th century, with the invention of the camera obscura. By page 400 you're still barely into the 1900s. There are about a million cool old photos from all over the world in this book that you've never seen, and you can skim through the essays fairly easily. Just having it on my shelf makes me feel scholarly.

Last books I loved:

"Gone Girl," "Sharp Objects" and "Dark Places," by Gillian Flynn.

I did a marathon reading of all three of Flynn's books in one weekend. I was obsessed! I was never into murder mysteries before because they always seem to star broody men in trench coats and delicate damsels in distress. The heroes in Flynn's novels, however, are smart, complex women with dysfunctional families and psychological issues that I'm sure many women can relate to, despite the extreme murder-and-mayhem circumstances. Also, Amy Dunne's rant about the myth of "The Cool Girl" is one of the best, most cynical tirades I've read all year. I just hope it's not true.

Book I read when I'm feeling sad and uninspired:

"Role Models," by John Waters.

It's not just that he's a hilarious writer, it's that he's so insanely enthusiastic about everything. There's no "meh" with this guy. He either loves or loathes with a passion.

The best artists are always the ones who are the most obsessive, about their craft and about everything. I saw Waters do his one-man show last year and during the Q&A portion at the end, I raised my hand and asked him how he successfully managed to quit smoking after being an avid smoker for so many years. He whipped out an index card from his pants pocket on which he'd written the exact number of days since he last smoked. And it was like 3,000-something days! How's that for obsessive/inspiring?

Anyway, each chapter of this book is about one person or thing that he loves, and he writes about them with such warped devotion, it makes you love them too. His ode to crazy Comme Des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo is my favorite. It always cheers me up.

One book I would recommend to anyone:

"Cruddy," by Lynda Barry.

Truthfully, I might not recommend this sad, funny, macabre tale of teenagerhood to anyone too squeamish or with too normal of a childhood, but if you love this book as much as I do, you can be my friend forever. Lynda Barry, whom the magazine profiled in 2011, is my No. 1 hero. In all her books and comics, she taps into the language of childhood like no one else. A few years ago I saw her speak at the 92nd Street Y and she was so inspirational, funny and touching, I cried. Sorry, it's hard for me to write about her without gushing. I recommend everything she's ever written or drawn or said or done.

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