Burning Man

Wired magazine's book division, HardWired, has taken the rich color process that gives their newsstand editions such impact and put it to even better use here, producing a volume of full-page photographs uninterrupted by text or the eye-candy layout that make Wired so amusing and difficult to read. This book features work by nearly a dozen photographers documenting the Black Rock Arts Festival, better known as Burning Man. This annual event draws thousands of revelers to a desolate stretch of desert for a few days of performance art, naked frolicking, and a bizarre, mock auto-da-fé wherein the giant wood and neon Burning Man is destroyed in the culmination of this festival of images. Sixteen pages of text separate the daylight photos from those taken at night, and the endpapers, prints of the cracked and empty desert surface, neatly wrap this exquisitely beautiful package.