Each bookstore will act as a concierge, recommending "the book you should read now" to FASHION HEADLINE readers. Every Saturday, we will introduce books selected by Shelf (3-7-4 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo), a Harajuku bookstore specializing in foreign books.




■ "The Lines of My Hand" by Robert Frank

A new edition of "The Lines of My Hand," Robert Frank's most important book after "The Americans," and the publication that established his autobiographical, confessional bookbinding style. This book chronologically presents a selection of images from every stage of Frank's work up to 1972, from his early photographs taken in Switzerland in 1945-46, to photographs taken on trips to Peru, Paris, Valencia, London and Wales, contact sheets from the 1955-56 tour of the United States that ultimately brought him fame and was compiled in The Americans, photographs of Frank's young family, later photo collages, and stills from films such as Pull My Daisy (1959) and About Me: A Musical (1971).




The structure itself reflects the rhythm of Frank's life, while the short, personal, diary-like texts allow his voice to be fully conveyed. The book's original combination of text and image, its fearless self-reflection, and its insistence on photography and film have been a source of inspiration for many photographers, especially Robert Frank himself, who continues to pursue a visual diary approach.