Words are exhausting, don’t you think? I’m with Andy Warhol, who said: “I don’t read, I just look at pictures.” Sometimes all I want is a good old-fashioned picture book to flick through on the couch, especially at the end of a stressful week (… year? Life!). Hard-to-buy-for friends and relatives will be thrilled with a gorgeous coffee-table book too, so here are Life & Leisure’s picks.

The National Gallery of Victoria has packaged up its impressive photography collection into an exhibition and large-format book called Photography: Real and Imagined. It puts iconic work by Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans and others alongside beloved Australian photographers like Max Dupain, Olive Cotton and Rennie Ellis, setting off small explosions of recognition and synergy. Like a really good party, everyone gets along famously as soon as they meet.