Writing in the U.K. newspaper, The Telegraph, Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville reviews Magnum Contact Sheets, a new book comprising 139 contact sheets and related materials containing famous and notable images made from the 1930s through recent years by 69 Magnum photographers. The featured photographers include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Inge Morath, Bruno Barbey, and Eve Arnold, among many others. 

Banville calls the book "utterly absorbing", and his interesting essay reflects on the role of the contact sheet in the history and practice of film-based photography and photojournalism. It includes thoughtful quotes from several photographers, Cartier-Bresson included, on what contact sheets reveal about the sometimes unruly way that great pictures are created and also about the vulnerability inherent in letting people see one's mistakes and bad ideas. 

In 508 pages Magnum Contact Sheets includes 435 illustrations, including contact sheets and individual prints, as well as commentary from numerous photographers written specifically for the book or collected from their estates. The book is edited by Kristen Lubben, a curator at the International Center of Photography, and published by Thames & Hudson. We found it listed at two large online book retailers for around $100 in the U.S.