Most guides to collecting art are really guides to spending money confidently. This one isn't. It is eight essays on the quieter questions: how to look at a painting that isn't of anything, what actually sets its price, how to know you'll still love it in five years, and how to live with it once it's on your wall.

They are arranged the way a collector actually moves. First there is looking, before any question of buying arrives. Then the decisions themselves. Then the long life of the object once it's yours. Start anywhere. Nothing here is trying to sell you the next thing.