Because the aim of most photographers is to renew a viewer’s sense of wonder, they tend to render the world in ways that challenge the eye, unsettle the mind and stir the spirit. Just in time for the holidays, three large-scale, lavish photography books featuring both cutting-edge and classic images have arrived to test our sensibilities and make us re-view reality. If you’re buying for an art lover this season, put these handsome volumes at the top of your shopping list.

Re-envisioning the everyday as the exotic, turning common moments into milestones, the camera revises customary existence, makes it seem mysterious. In Diane Arbus: Revelations (Random House, $50, 351 pages, ISBN 0812972201), the transformative effects of this little device are amply represented. Providing a thorough overview of the career of Arbus, a ground-breaking photographer who got her start in the fashion industry in the 1940s, Revelations covers three decades and features 200 full-page reproductions of her work. Arbus brought a singularly honest way of seeing to the picture-taking process, offering fresh perspectives on the familiar world, depicting humanity in all its varied shades. From bench-sitters in Central Park to sideshow freaks, female impersonators and frosty debutantes, the black-and-white photos in Revelations expose the drama inherent in the mundane, the theatricality simmering beneath the surface of normal life. With selections from her famous Untitled series, shot at homes for the mentally retarded, Revelations is the most comprehensive treatment of Arbus’ photography ever to appear. Published to coincide with an international retrospective of her work, these smoky photos, all classic Arbus, are a wonderful document of American culture.

Visual excavations After police chased and gunned down a dangerous fugitive on her Virginia property, photographer Sally Mann took pictures of the tire tracks and torn trees, the residual marks of a pursuit that, regardless of its impermanence, altered her home forever. The imprint of the past upon the present is a recurring theme in her luminous new book, What Remains (Bulfinch, $50, 132 pages, ISBN 0821228439), and Mann seeks and captures this quality in places where history is etched upon the landscape, in locales as varied as Antietam, where some of the Civil War’s fiercest fighting occurred, and a forensics study site, where bodies decompose in the woods.

Suspended between two states of being, Mann’s oddly picturesque corpses and bones, which she imbued with a gray-green hue, are not quite matter, not yet spirit. Her ghostly vistas otherworldly and insubstantial seem to be forever dissolving. Using glass plates and the old-fashioned collodion method of photography, she achieved the gorgeous golden patina that makes the portraits of her children look aged and hazy, eternally antiquated. An artist of international acclaim, Mann was voted America’s best photographer by Time magazine in 2001. The boldness of her vision has earned her a reputation as a controversial artist unafraid of provoking viewers. Her extraordinary new book does just that. A photographic feast The ultimate picture book, Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs is a classic compilation of the Society’s greatest visuals. Spanning a century, the pictures collected in this splendid volume represent some of the biggest names in photography, including Sam Abell, William Albert Allard and Jodi Cobb.

From Asia and South America to outer space, each chapter in Through the Lens is dedicated to a different geographical area, covering culture, nature and wildlife in photos that are, by turns, marvelous in their simplicity and breathtaking in their complexity. In Sicily, a line of laundry strung between fire escapes billows in the breeze. An Islamic woman, enveloped in white, waits in a Tripoli airport. International in its vision, vast in its scope, Through the Lens is a generous and memorable tribute to the world.

Because the aim of most photographers is to renew a viewer’s sense of wonder, they tend to render the world in ways that challenge the eye, unsettle the mind and stir the spirit. Just in time for the holidays, three large-scale, lavish photography books featuring both cutting-edge and classic images have arrived to test our sensibilities and make us re-view reality. If you’re buying for an art lover this season, put these handsome volumes at the top of your shopping list.

Re-envisioning the everyday as the exotic, turning common moments into milestones, the camera revises customary existence, makes it seem mysterious. In Diane Arbus: Revelations (Random House, $50, 351 pages, ISBN 0812972201), the transformative effects of this little device are amply represented. Providing a thorough overview of the career of Arbus, a ground-breaking photographer who got her start in the fashion industry in the 1940s, Revelations covers three decades and features 200 full-page reproductions of her work. Arbus brought a singularly honest way of seeing to the picture-taking process, offering fresh perspectives on the familiar world, depicting humanity in all its varied shades. From bench-sitters in Central Park to sideshow freaks, female impersonators and frosty debutantes, the black-and-white photos in Revelations expose the drama inherent in the mundane, the theatricality simmering beneath the surface of normal life. With selections from her famous Untitled series, shot at homes for the mentally retarded, Revelations is the most comprehensive treatment of Arbus’ photography ever to appear. Published to coincide with an international retrospective of her work, these smoky photos, all classic Arbus, are a wonderful document of American culture.

Visual excavations After police chased and gunned down a dangerous fugitive on her Virginia property, photographer Sally Mann took pictures of the tire tracks and torn trees, the residual marks of a pursuit that, regardless of its impermanence, altered her home forever. The imprint of the past upon the present is a recurring theme in her luminous new book, What Remains, and Mann seeks and captures this quality in places where history is etched upon the landscape, in locales as varied as Antietam, where some of the Civil War’s fiercest fighting occurred, and a forensics study site, where bodies decompose in the woods.

Suspended between two states of being, Mann’s oddly picturesque corpses and bones, which she imbued with a gray-green hue, are not quite matter, not yet spirit. Her ghostly vistas otherworldly and insubstantial seem to be forever dissolving. Using glass plates and the old-fashioned collodion method of photography, she achieved the gorgeous golden patina that makes the portraits of her children look aged and hazy, eternally antiquated. An artist of international acclaim, Mann was voted America’s best photographer by Time magazine in 2001. The boldness of her vision has earned her a reputation as a controversial artist unafraid of provoking viewers. Her extraordinary new book does just that. A photographic feast The ultimate picture book, Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs (National Geographic, $30, 504 pages, ISBN 079226164X) is a classic compilation of the Society’s greatest visuals. Spanning a century, the pictures collected in this splendid volume represent some of the biggest names in photography, including Sam Abell, William Albert Allard and Jodi Cobb.

From Asia and South America to outer space, each chapter in Through the Lens is dedicated to a different geographical area, covering culture, nature and wildlife in photos that are, by turns, marvelous in their simplicity and breathtaking in their complexity. In Sicily, a line of laundry strung between fire escapes billows in the breeze. An Islamic woman, enveloped in white, waits in a Tripoli airport. International in its vision, vast in its scope, Through the Lens is a generous and memorable tribute to the world.

Because the aim of most photographers is to renew a viewer’s sense of wonder, they tend to render the world in ways that challenge the eye, unsettle the mind and stir the spirit. Just in time for the holidays, three large-scale, lavish photography books featuring both cutting-edge and classic images have arrived to test our sensibilities and make us re-view reality. If you’re buying for an art lover this season, put these handsome volumes at the top of your shopping list.

Re-envisioning the everyday as the exotic, turning common moments into milestones, the camera revises customary existence, makes it seem mysterious. In Diane Arbus: Revelations, the transformative effects of this little device are amply represented. Providing a thorough overview of the career of Arbus, a ground-breaking photographer who got her start in the fashion industry in the 1940s, Revelations covers three decades and features 200 full-page reproductions of her work. Arbus brought a singularly honest way of seeing to the picture-taking process, offering fresh perspectives on the familiar world, depicting humanity in all its varied shades. From bench-sitters in Central Park to sideshow freaks, female impersonators and frosty debutantes, the black-and-white photos in Revelations expose the drama inherent in the mundane, the theatricality simmering beneath the surface of normal life. With selections from her famous Untitled series, shot at homes for the mentally retarded, Revelations is the most comprehensive treatment of Arbus’ photography ever to appear. Published to coincide with an international retrospective of her work, these smoky photos, all classic Arbus, are a wonderful document of American culture.

Visual excavations After police chased and gunned down a dangerous fugitive on her Virginia property, photographer Sally Mann took pictures of the tire tracks and torn trees, the residual marks of a pursuit that, regardless of its impermanence, altered her home forever. The imprint of the past upon the present is a recurring theme in her luminous new book, What Remains (Bulfinch, $50, 132 pages, ISBN 0821228439), and Mann seeks and captures this quality in places where history is etched upon the landscape, in locales as varied as Antietam, where some of the Civil War’s fiercest fighting occurred, and a forensics study site, where bodies decompose in the woods.

Suspended between two states of being, Mann’s oddly picturesque corpses and bones, which she imbued with a gray-green hue, are not quite matter, not yet spirit. Her ghostly vistas otherworldly and insubstantial seem to be forever dissolving. Using glass plates and the old-fashioned collodion method of photography, she achieved the gorgeous golden patina that makes the portraits of her children look aged and hazy, eternally antiquated. An artist of international acclaim, Mann was voted America’s best photographer by Time magazine in 2001. The boldness of her vision has earned her a reputation as a controversial artist unafraid of provoking viewers. Her extraordinary new book does just that. A photographic feast The ultimate picture book, Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs (National Geographic, $30, 504 pages, ISBN 079226164X) is a classic compilation of the Society’s greatest visuals. Spanning a century, the pictures collected in this splendid volume represent some of the biggest names in photography, including Sam Abell, William Albert Allard and Jodi Cobb.

From Asia and South America to outer space, each chapter in Through the Lens is dedicated to a different geographical area, covering culture, nature and wildlife in photos that are, by turns, marvelous in their simplicity and breathtaking in their complexity. In Sicily, a line of laundry strung between fire escapes billows in the breeze. An Islamic woman, enveloped in white, waits in a Tripoli airport. International in its vision, vast in its scope, Through the Lens is a generous and memorable tribute to the world.

Photographers oftentimes needn’t look far to find their subjects: the sidewalk, the playground, any place with faces will do a locale where the human condition becomes fair game for the camera. But it takes a skilled eye to make the mundane appear mysterious, the commonplace seem transcendent.

This month’s gift books feature photographers who have done these things and more, proving that sometimes everyday reality renders the best art.

After a 15-year collaboration, Colin Westerbeck, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, and acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz produced Bystander: A History of Street Photography, a masterful look at the medium that was first published in 1994. Reissued recently in paperback with an additional chapter covering current photographers, a new edition of Bystander the first-ever history of the genre is available from Bulfinch. As hefty and handsome as the first, the new book has ample examples of classic black-and-white street photography and authoritative chapters that provide a context for the pictures as well as their takers, photographers who, in a manner of speaking, eavesdropped with their eyes on couples kissing in parks, children fighting in alleys, on street vendors and bums. Unpremeditated, without artful interference, plot or pose, their photos were the products of coincidence that serendipitous synthesis of who, where and when. The trick, as the saying goes, was in the timing.

Bystander offers more than a century’s worth of unforgettable images, including the effortlessly elegant pictures of Brassa• and Henri Cartier-Bresson; the rootsy work of Walker Evans photos that defined a nation and the pitiless, probing, hardboiled images of ’40s press photographer Weegee, whose unforgiving flashbulb revealed humanity at its worst. Among the contemporary photographers mentioned in the book is Joel Sternfeld, whose color portraits of everyday Americans are collected in Stranger Passing, a provocative volume that accompanies a current exhibition of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. With these sharp, vivid portraits, Sternfeld has captured the essence of our culture in its many manifestations: an Indian woman, brightly robed, pumping gas in Kansas City; a pair of summer interns on Wall Street who, with their fresh young faces and grown-up clothes, seem caught between boy- and manhood. The viewer can’t help but wonder about the narratives of these lives the before and after of every photograph. Proving that the term typical American defies definition, the gallery of characters in the book is diverse. Sternfeld, who has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Two wonderful essays by popular journalist Ian Frazier and Douglas Nickel, associate curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, complement his pictures.

Photographers oftentimes needn’t look far to find their subjects: the sidewalk, the playground, any place with faces will do a locale where the human condition becomes fair game for the camera. But it takes a skilled eye to make the mundane appear mysterious, the commonplace seem transcendent.

This month’s gift books feature photographers who have done these things and more, proving that sometimes everyday reality renders the best art.

After a 15-year collaboration, Colin Westerbeck, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, and acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz produced Bystander: A History of Street Photography, a masterful look at the medium that was first published in 1994. Reissued recently in paperback with an additional chapter covering current photographers, a new edition of Bystander the first-ever history of the genre is available from Bulfinch. As hefty and handsome as the first, the new book has ample examples of classic black-and-white street photography and authoritative chapters that provide a context for the pictures as well as their takers, photographers who, in a manner of speaking, eavesdropped with their eyes on couples kissing in parks, children fighting in alleys, on street vendors and bums. Unpremeditated, without artful interference, plot or pose, their photos were the products of coincidence that serendipitous synthesis of who, where and when. The trick, as the saying goes, was in the timing.

Bystander offers more than a century’s worth of unforgettable images, including the effortlessly elegant pictures of Brassa• and Henri Cartier-Bresson; the rootsy work of Walker Evans photos that defined a nation and the pitiless, probing, hardboiled images of ’40s press photographer Weegee, whose unforgiving flashbulb revealed humanity at its worst. Among the contemporary photographers mentioned in the book is Joel Sternfeld, whose color portraits of everyday Americans are collected in Stranger Passing, a provocative volume that accompanies a current exhibition of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. With these sharp, vivid portraits, Sternfeld has captured the essence of our culture in its many manifestations: an Indian woman, brightly robed, pumping gas in Kansas City; a pair of summer interns on Wall Street who, with their fresh young faces and grown-up clothes, seem caught between boy- and manhood. The viewer can’t help but wonder about the narratives of these lives the before and after of every photograph. Proving that the term typical American defies definition, the gallery of characters in the book is diverse. Sternfeld, who has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Two wonderful essays by popular journalist Ian Frazier and Douglas Nickel, associate curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, complement his pictures.

Owning an impressive photography book is almost like having a museum in your own home: comprehensive and colossal, hard on the arm, but easy on the eye, these books offer more visual riches per square inch than the most glamorous of galleries. The perfect way to enliven any library, they’re packed with culture from cover to cover, pretty and portable (sort of). So dispense with the seasonal indecision. Tilt the scale in your favor when it comes to holiday gift-giving and pick up one of these treasures for the coffee table they’re a treat for any aesthete and the ultimate indulgence for the art lover on your list. Judging books by their covers There are unimagined beauties hidden deep in your dictionary, and Abelardo Morell has found them. Aiming his lens at the shelves of the Boston Public Library, among other institutions, the photographer has produced A Book of Books (Bulfinch, $60, 108 pages, ISBN 0821227696), a striking collection of black-and-white pictures presenting books as objets d’art, pleasing to the eye as well as the intellect. Re-envisioning the library, Morell finds magic in the stacks, capturing unforgettable images the marbled bottom of a formidable dictionary; gilded spines on a book-lined wall from ingenious angles. Here are venerable survivors (volumes damaged by water and dirt), classics in close-up (A Farewell to Arms; A Tale of Two Cities) and a visitor from the future (a digital text), all coupled with quotes about books from authors like Emily Dickinson, Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Butler. From an Audubon folio as big as a table to the tiniest of texts a wee book that makes a paper clip look big Morrell has compiled a collection that’s rich in literary delights, abundant with the wonder of words. Nicholson Baker, author of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, provides the preface.

The genius of Stieglitz The work of a master photographer is celebrated in Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set (Abrams, $150, 1,100 pages, ISBN 0810935333), the hefty, comprehensive companion to the Stieglitz collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Spanning five decades, from 1886 to 1937, the two-volume edition contains more than 1,000 images and provides a thorough survey of the New Jersey native’s work. From portraits and cityscapes, to studies of his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keefe, The Key Set collects the work of a man who captured America and Europe on film with an expert eye, applying painterly concepts to the picture-taking process and becoming the first photographer to be exhibited in American museums. Released just as a traveling exhibition of the Stieglitz collection is set to begin in the U. S., the handsomely boxed volumes include a chronology and bibliography, along with an introductory essay by Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art.

History in pictures Two centuries after the fact, we’re still feeling the repercussions of the War Between the States. A moving testament to the conflict that redefined the lines of color and kin in America, The Civil War in Photographs by historian William C. Davis is a remarkable pictorial account of the era. More than 300 classic images show the major arenas of battle and the men who participated, from bold, beardless youths to intrepid leaders like Lee and Sherman. Taken on the front and in the studio, these pictures gleaned from the work of 2,000 photographers evoke the drama of the first war to be extensively captured on camera. Documenting the famous and the anonymous, depicting life in camp and in the trenches, the volume combines portraits of soldiers and citizens with startling scenes of destruction, including images of Atlanta laid waste. Putting it all in perspective is Davis, director of programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, whose lucid, lively text accompanies the photographs.

Owning an impressive photography book is almost like having a museum in your own home: comprehensive and colossal, hard on the arm, but easy on the eye, these books offer more visual riches per square inch than the most glamorous of galleries. The perfect way to enliven any library, they’re packed with culture from cover to cover, pretty and portable (sort of). So dispense with the seasonal indecision. Tilt the scale in your favor when it comes to holiday gift-giving and pick up one of these treasures for the coffee table they’re a treat for any aesthete and the ultimate indulgence for the art lover on your list. Judging books by their covers There are unimagined beauties hidden deep in your dictionary, and Abelardo Morell has found them. Aiming his lens at the shelves of the Boston Public Library, among other institutions, the photographer has produced A Book of Books (Bulfinch, $60, 108 pages, ISBN 0821227696), a striking collection of black-and-white pictures presenting books as objets d’art, pleasing to the eye as well as the intellect. Re-envisioning the library, Morell finds magic in the stacks, capturing unforgettable images the marbled bottom of a formidable dictionary; gilded spines on a book-lined wall from ingenious angles. Here are venerable survivors (volumes damaged by water and dirt), classics in close-up (A Farewell to Arms; A Tale of Two Cities) and a visitor from the future (a digital text), all coupled with quotes about books from authors like Emily Dickinson, Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Butler. From an Audubon folio as big as a table to the tiniest of texts a wee book that makes a paper clip look big Morrell has compiled a collection that’s rich in literary delights, abundant with the wonder of words. Nicholson Baker, author of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, provides the preface.

The genius of Stieglitz The work of a master photographer is celebrated in Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set, the hefty, comprehensive companion to the Stieglitz collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Spanning five decades, from 1886 to 1937, the two-volume edition contains more than 1,000 images and provides a thorough survey of the New Jersey native’s work. From portraits and cityscapes, to studies of his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keefe, The Key Set collects the work of a man who captured America and Europe on film with an expert eye, applying painterly concepts to the picture-taking process and becoming the first photographer to be exhibited in American museums. Released just as a traveling exhibition of the Stieglitz collection is set to begin in the U. S., the handsomely boxed volumes include a chronology and bibliography, along with an introductory essay by Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art.

History in pictures Two centuries after the fact, we’re still feeling the repercussions of the War Between the States. A moving testament to the conflict that redefined the lines of color and kin in America, The Civil War in Photographs (Carlton, $39.95, 256 pages, ISBN 1842226363) by historian William C. Davis is a remarkable pictorial account of the era. More than 300 classic images show the major arenas of battle and the men who participated, from bold, beardless youths to intrepid leaders like Lee and Sherman. Taken on the front and in the studio, these pictures gleaned from the work of 2,000 photographers evoke the drama of the first war to be extensively captured on camera. Documenting the famous and the anonymous, depicting life in camp and in the trenches, the volume combines portraits of soldiers and citizens with startling scenes of destruction, including images of Atlanta laid waste. Putting it all in perspective is Davis, director of programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, whose lucid, lively text accompanies the photographs.

Owning an impressive photography book is almost like having a museum in your own home: comprehensive and colossal, hard on the arm, but easy on the eye, these books offer more visual riches per square inch than the most glamorous of galleries. The perfect way to enliven any library, they’re packed with culture from cover to cover, pretty and portable (sort of). So dispense with the seasonal indecision. Tilt the scale in your favor when it comes to holiday gift-giving and pick up one of these treasures for the coffee table they’re a treat for any aesthete and the ultimate indulgence for the art lover on your list.

Judging books by their covers There are unimagined beauties hidden deep in your dictionary, and Abelardo Morell has found them. Aiming his lens at the shelves of the Boston Public Library, among other institutions, the photographer has produced

A Book of Books, a striking collection of black-and-white pictures presenting books as objets d’art, pleasing to the eye as well as the intellect. Re-envisioning the library, Morell finds magic in the stacks, capturing unforgettable images the marbled bottom of a formidable dictionary; gilded spines on a book-lined wall from ingenious angles. Here are venerable survivors (volumes damaged by water and dirt), classics in close-up (A Farewell to Arms; A Tale of Two Cities) and a visitor from the future (a digital text), all coupled with quotes about books from authors like Emily Dickinson, Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Butler. From an Audubon folio as big as a table to the tiniest of texts a wee book that makes a paper clip look big Morrell has compiled a collection that’s rich in literary delights, abundant with the wonder of words. Nicholson Baker, author of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, provides the preface.

The genius of Stieglitz The work of a master photographer is celebrated in Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set (Abrams, $150, 1,100 pages, ISBN 0810935333), the hefty, comprehensive companion to the Stieglitz collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Spanning five decades, from 1886 to 1937, the two-volume edition contains more than 1,000 images and provides a thorough survey of the New Jersey native’s work. From portraits and cityscapes, to studies of his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keefe, The Key Set collects the work of a man who captured America and Europe on film with an expert eye, applying painterly concepts to the picture-taking process and becoming the first photographer to be exhibited in American museums. Released just as a traveling exhibition of the Stieglitz collection is set to begin in the U. S., the handsomely boxed volumes include a chronology and bibliography, along with an introductory essay by Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art.

History in pictures Two centuries after the fact, we’re still feeling the repercussions of the War Between the States. A moving testament to the conflict that redefined the lines of color and kin in America, The Civil War in Photographs (Carlton, $39.95, 256 pages, ISBN 1842226363) by historian William C. Davis is a remarkable pictorial account of the era. More than 300 classic images show the major arenas of battle and the men who participated, from bold, beardless youths to intrepid leaders like Lee and Sherman. Taken on the front and in the studio, these pictures gleaned from the work of 2,000 photographers evoke the drama of the first war to be extensively captured on camera. Documenting the famous and the anonymous, depicting life in camp and in the trenches, the volume combines portraits of soldiers and citizens with startling scenes of destruction, including images of Atlanta laid waste. Putting it all in perspective is Davis, director of programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, whose lucid, lively text accompanies the photographs.

Let’s face it: nothing spoils the holiday season quite like shopping can. Getting the goods requires a tactical plan that would make MacArthur proud. Luckily, the intrepid editors of BookPage have run reconnaissance for readers, scouting out the hottest titles for the holidays. Armed with these great gift ideas the best in music, photography and dance you can cut those shopping skirmishes short and keep your inner Scrooge at bay.

Was ever a man more comely to look upon than Mikhail Baryshnikov? This specimen of physical perfection first entranced the world in 1974 with his thrilling defection from the Soviet Union while on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Canada. Impish, tousled and utterly endearing, he quickly became the darling of the dance world, working with the West’s top choreographers and companies. Baryshnikov in Black and White, a stunning collection of 175 performance and rehearsal photographs, follows the course of the star’s career outside the Soviet block, spanning nearly three decades and showcasing the dancer’s many abilities and moods from mischievous boy, to seductive satyr, to tortured madman.

Cataloguing Misha’s greatest moments on the stage and in the theatre, the book features photos from ballet classics like The Nutcracker, as well as shots of modern works by Martha Graham, Paul Taylor and Mark Morris. The dancer’s pure lines and remarkable versatility are dramatically documented here, as are his partnerships with primas like Natalia Makarova. The hooded eyes, the mighty thighs, the aura of melancholy all are unmistakably Misha. With an introduction by ballet critic Joan Acocella, this volume is a wonderful tribute to the greatest male dancer of our time.

Satisfaction for Stones fans Raunchy, rowdy and simmering with sexuality, The Rolling Stones stumbled onto the London pop scene in 1962, beginning a tumultuous 40-year career marked early on by the inimitable swagger of Mick Jagger, the cheekiness of Keith Richards, the dignified reserve of Charlie Watts and for a time the beatific beauty of Brian Jones. Also along for one of the wildest rides in rock n’ roll history was Stones bassist Bill Wyman, a bluesman turned author and documentarian, whose terrific new book Rolling with the Stones (DK, $50, 496 pages, ISBN 0798489678) combines more than 2,000 photographs with classic visuals and band artifacts, as well as behind-the-scenes stories about Mick and the boys. This mod, mad volume traces the arc of the group’s career, capturing the trippy ’60s and excessive ’70s, dishing on chick sidekicks Marianne Faithfull and Bianca Jagger, and providing background info on classic blues-inflected albums like Sticky Fingers. Wyman also includes band bios, covering temporary Stone Mick Taylor along with Ron Wood, as well as input from the band about their musical influences, public and private lives, and the longevity of their legend. The ultimate Stones scrapbook, this vivid volume is the perfect gift for fans of the band Bill Graham once called “the biggest draw in the history of mankind.” Wounds of war It was a war from which we’ve never recovered, fought in an era when pop culture collided with politics. Vietnam was nearly the unmaking of our nation, and now a stirring new volume collects classic images of the conflict snapped by Larry Burrows, one of the century’s greatest photojournalists. With 150 color and black-and-white photographs, Larry Burrows Vietnam (Knopf, $50, 243 pages, ISBN 037541102X) delivers the drama of combat with remarkable sensitivity and detail. The intrepid Englishman who strapped himself to the open door of a plane in order to shoot some of the pictures featured in the book covered the conflict from 1962 until his death in 1971, when the helicopter he flew in was shot down near the Vietnam-Laos border. Published in Life magazine (for which Burrows went to work at the age of 16), each of the volume’s 11 pictorial essays distills the nightmare reality of battle: wounded children, trussed prisoners, Asian women wracked by grief, soldiers stealing sleep amidst the litter of American luxuries chocolate and matches, cigarettes and soap, the bright wrappers emphatic on green grass. With an introduction by David Halberstam, Larry Burrows Vietnam is a profoundly moving visual reminiscence of war.

Let’s face it: nothing spoils the holiday season quite like shopping can. Getting the goods requires a tactical plan that would make MacArthur proud. Luckily, the intrepid editors of BookPage have run reconnaissance for readers, scouting out the hottest titles for the holidays. Armed with these great gift ideas the best in music, photography and dance you can cut those shopping skirmishes short and keep your inner Scrooge at bay.

Was ever a man more comely to look upon than Mikhail Baryshnikov? This specimen of physical perfection first entranced the world in 1974 with his thrilling defection from the Soviet Union while on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Canada. Impish, tousled and utterly endearing, he quickly became the darling of the dance world, working with the West’s top choreographers and companies. Baryshnikov in Black and White (Bloomsbury, $60, 321 pages, ISBN 1582341869), a stunning collection of 175 performance and rehearsal photographs, follows the course of the star’s career outside the Soviet block, spanning nearly three decades and showcasing the dancer’s many abilities and moods from mischievous boy, to seductive satyr, to tortured madman.

Cataloguing Misha’s greatest moments on the stage and in the theatre, the book features photos from ballet classics like The Nutcracker, as well as shots of modern works by Martha Graham, Paul Taylor and Mark Morris. The dancer’s pure lines and remarkable versatility are dramatically documented here, as are his partnerships with primas like Natalia Makarova. The hooded eyes, the mighty thighs, the aura of melancholy all are unmistakably Misha. With an introduction by ballet critic Joan Acocella, this volume is a wonderful tribute to the greatest male dancer of our time.

Satisfaction for Stones fans Raunchy, rowdy and simmering with sexuality, The Rolling Stones stumbled onto the London pop scene in 1962, beginning a tumultuous 40-year career marked early on by the inimitable swagger of Mick Jagger, the cheekiness of Keith Richards, the dignified reserve of Charlie Watts and for a time the beatific beauty of Brian Jones. Also along for one of the wildest rides in rock n’ roll history was Stones bassist Bill Wyman, a bluesman turned author and documentarian, whose terrific new book Rolling with the Stones (DK, $50, 496 pages, ISBN 0798489678) combines more than 2,000 photographs with classic visuals and band artifacts, as well as behind-the-scenes stories about Mick and the boys. This mod, mad volume traces the arc of the group’s career, capturing the trippy ’60s and excessive ’70s, dishing on chick sidekicks Marianne Faithfull and Bianca Jagger, and providing background info on classic blues-inflected albums like Sticky Fingers. Wyman also includes band bios, covering temporary Stone Mick Taylor along with Ron Wood, as well as input from the band about their musical influences, public and private lives, and the longevity of their legend. The ultimate Stones scrapbook, this vivid volume is the perfect gift for fans of the band Bill Graham once called “the biggest draw in the history of mankind.” Wounds of war It was a war from which we’ve never recovered, fought in an era when pop culture collided with politics. Vietnam was nearly the unmaking of our nation, and now a stirring new volume collects classic images of the conflict snapped by Larry Burrows, one of the century’s greatest photojournalists. With 150 color and black-and-white photographs, Larry Burrows Vietnam delivers the drama of combat with remarkable sensitivity and detail. The intrepid Englishman who strapped himself to the open door of a plane in order to shoot some of the pictures featured in the book covered the conflict from 1962 until his death in 1971, when the helicopter he flew in was shot down near the Vietnam-Laos border. Published in Life magazine (for which Burrows went to work at the age of 16), each of the volume’s 11 pictorial essays distills the nightmare reality of battle: wounded children, trussed prisoners, Asian women wracked by grief, soldiers stealing sleep amidst the litter of American luxuries chocolate and matches, cigarettes and soap, the bright wrappers emphatic on green grass. With an introduction by David Halberstam, Larry Burrows Vietnam is a profoundly moving visual reminiscence of war.