Ten top books about 1970s art

Rachel Kushner’s new novel is The Flamethrowers. Her debut novel, Telex from Cuba, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the California Book Award, and a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book. It was named a best book by the Washington Post Book Book World, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Christian Science Monitor, and Amazon. Kushner's fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review, The Believer, Artforum, Bookforum, Fence, Bomb, Cabinet, and Grand Street. She lives in Los Angeles.

For the Guardian, Kushner named ten of her favorite books about 1970s art, including:

Americana by Don DeLillo

DeLillo's first novel, published in 1971, shows a deep understanding of visual culture and the logic of advertising, which has everything to do with the gestures and ideas of the artists who came to preeminence in that decade. "The war was on television every night but we all went to the movies," he writes. This book understands its moment and the decade to come. Its crazy penultimate and almost inexplicable scene, of people guzzling beer and having an orgy in an automotive garage, is a lesson and inspiration.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue