This year one particular book struck a chord with me: Barbara Bosworth's The Heavens. I don't know if it's the best book this year (how can there be such a thing?), but for sure it's the one that touched me the most. I can't stop looking at it not because I used to be an astrophysicist, but because the artist didn't attempt to be one. Instead, these photographs hint at the sublime beauty that we all feel in the presence of celestial bodies, and they even endow the moon and sun with characters. The photographs in this book are all felt, not seen — and that's really the best an artist can hope for.

Jörg M. Colberg is a writer, photographer, and educator based in Northampton, Massachusetts. www.cphmag.com