John Ashdown-Hill
Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy | 2021 | Larissa Pham | Buy |
Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy established Pham as a distinctive voice in contemporary essay writing. The book moves between art museums and personal relationships, using artworks as anchors for meditation on love, sex, grief, and self-discovery. Pham writes openly about her own experiences while maintaining intellectual engagement with the art she discusses, creating essays that function as both memoir and criticism. The book’s title suggests its approach: treating visual art the way we might listen to a pop song, as something that captures feeling and memory, making emotional experience visible and shareable.