ON PHOTOGRAPHY by Susan Sontag (Anchor: $9.95)

In this extraordinarily cogent essay, Susan Sontag considers how the art of photography is perceived in Western society and how it has affected perception. She begins by considering how the medium that made it possible for detached viewers to discover the horrors of Auschwitz or Vietnam also has corrupted and deadened the sensations of pain these images should arouse: “The vast photographic catalogue of misery and injustice throughout the world has given everyone a certain familiarity with atrocity, making the horrible seem more ordinary--making it appear familiar, remote (‘it’s only a photograph’), inevitable.” In subsequent chapters, she reflects on the relationships between photography and history, painting and memory. Sontag writes with exceptional erudition and eloquence; this volume, which won the 1977 National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Criticism, supports her reputation as the foremost essayist in America.