We need to be honest with you — we have a dark obsession. We buy glorious, oversized, weighty, colorful, impeccably-made, occasionally expensive books about creators and the things they create.

Illustrators, designers, entrepreneurs, architects, visionaries … we love them all. Many of the books on this year’s list celebrate those who capture a unique time and place: 1950s Southern California, 1980s Miami, the fantasies of space-age design, the delicate wonder of the natural world, or the glitter-bomb apex of disco-era New York City.