Peter Sís is a stylistic illustrator whose detailed drawings have rendered both the fantasies of children's stories and adult yearnings for freedom. In The Conference of the Birds, the three-time Caldecott Honor Award winner takes inspiration from a 13th-century fable by Persian poet Farid Ud-Din Attar to create a visual feast of color and Escher-like images on textured paper.

The Conference story is a traditional quest tale where courage and determination overcome adversity, but it is the combination of Sís's complex geometrical landscapes with Middle Eastern influenced mazes, swirls and deep earth colors printed in full-page portfolio fashion that lift this book above the simplicity of its narrative. With tactile paper, elegant design, scrolling text and deftly detailed illustrations joined to a moving story, it reminds us how a well-made book transcends its parts to become itself a work of art. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Seattle catering chef Tiberio Simone thinks about food and sex a lot, often in tandem: A fennel salad has "a fresh flavor I can share and enjoy with the person I'm kissing," and he's used his mango salsa as a seduction tool. He also explores the sensual properties of food in a collaborative project with photographer Matt Freedman, draping naked models in fruits and vegetables. A woman's buttocks might be covered in strawberries, or a man's head, torso and arms decorated with purple potato slices. By turns arresting and playful, these pictures are accompanied by Simone's recollections of his Italian childhood and his meditations on adult pleasures, as well as several recipes. "If you pay attention, you'll see that beauty is everywhere," he advises. "In the produce section of the supermarket, and in the voluptuous person standing next to you in the checkout line." La Figa offers one lavish example after another of this philosophy of polymorphous pleasure. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

The Louvre holds many of the most celebrated and important paintings of all time, and they, along with every other piece in the permanent collection--a staggering total of 3,022 works in all--are presented in the spectacular The Louvre: All the Paintings, an "exhibition catalogue" to forever define the term. The inventory is divided into four schools--Italian, Northern, French and Spanish--then arranged chronologically by the artist's date of birth, making it easy to browse, find and enjoy lively descriptions of the artists and their work. You'll also find tidbits of little-known gossip by observant art historians scattered throughout: for instance, Leonardo Da Vinci's The Virgin on the Rocks was originally received with disfavor because of the artist's insistence on light-dark contrast instead of clear identification of the figures.

Warning: The Louvre: All The Paintings weighs 10.6 lbs. and has 784 pages. Let the power lifting begin! --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Canada is the second largest nation in the world, but its vastness is often a surprise, even to "lower" Canadians who live close to the southern border against the United States. The area north of the arctic tree line is largely uninhabited... except, that is, for the diverse communities of the Inuit.

The bold and often intricate sculptures of self-taught Inuit artists, created predominately from available stone and animal fur, sinew and bone, began to build a national and international reputation in the 1950s. The Art Gallery of Ontario has one of the world's largest collections of Inuit art, and it's showcased in the comprehensive, full-color Inuit Modern. Photographs of more than 175 works by 75 artists, with a variety of short but informative essays by historians, curators and the artists themselves, provide a definitive representation of the modern and evolving creative world of a people whose history has been primarily one of survival in a cold and harsh climate. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Over the last two centuries, Britain's royal family has amassed a handsome collection of works by the legendary Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé. His name may be most closely associated with the Romanovs' famously ostentatious eggs, but Royal Fabergé demonstrates the full range of his creativity. Some of the works featured were purchased from Fabergé's London showroom; others were acquired from antiquities dealers after the Russian Revolution's dust had settled.

Caroline de Guitaut, curator of decorative arts in the Royal Collection, describes this impressive hoard in loving detail, from floppy-eared pigs intricately carved from agate to diamond-studded, enameled cigarette cases (and, of course, the eggs). The book itself is no less lovely, its photos elegantly set in a Laura Ashley-like color palette. The paper is heavy and satiny, the kind you can't help but touch even after the page has been turned. It's a suitably luxurious tribute to an opulent subject. --Kelly Faircloth, freelance writer

What is it about artists and Moby-Dick? From Rockwell Kent's classic prints and Barry Moser's elegant line drawings to Will Eisner's graphic novel, not to mention Frank Stella's multimedia undertaking and Jackson Pollock's Blue, Melville's novel has long cast a spell on artists. Matt Kish is the latest to come under it, big time.

Inspired by Zak Smith's illustrations for Gravity's Rainbow, Kish hid away in a closet studio for 18 months, illustrating selected lines from every page (552 of them) of the Signet edition! Primarily applying ink pen, marker, crayon and watercolor to the actual pages, he has produced beautifully imagistic and impressionistic illustrations, heirs to the surreal and dada, with a little "yellow submarine" thrown in. Here is a cornucopia of images: whales as floating teeth or a green snake, Ahab as a disembodied skull, Ishmael as a wooden buoy. The carefully selected found paper creates haunting images upon images.--Thomas Lavoie, former publisher

What allowed Taye Diggs to find his identity, sustained Tony Bennett through a Depression-era childhood and represents love to Spike Lee? These are just three of the famous performers and filmmakers who speak to the life-altering power of art, their personal testimonies juxtaposed alongside photographic portraits by Brian Smith. Although Art & Soul is filled with celebrities, Smith's skill at portraiture is the real star attraction. He forgoes glamour and ornamentation in favor of frank, intimate shots that allow the subjects' personalities to shine. From Anne Hathaway's assertion that art is hope to Patricia Arquette's plea to support the arts for underprivileged children, Art and Soul is an affirmation of art's ability to inspire, heal and direct our lives, and is sure to delight everyone from portraiture connoisseur to philanthropist to coffee table book lover. --Jaclyn Fulwood, graduate assistant, University of Oklahoma Libraries

The vampire is "one of the most powerful avatars of our fears and our dreams," Rachel Caine (author of the Morganville Vampires series) observes in her introduction, and Vampire Art Now is loaded with dozens of different takes on their archetypal resonance. From portraits of Hammer film icons Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt to near-cherubic Keane-eyed waifs with fangs poking out from their lips, from lesbian lovers to savage, snarling beasts, there's a vampire to suit everyone's taste (especially if your taste runs toward goth, high fantasy or blood-drenched gore). The artwork ranges from simple black-and-white drawings to lush paintings, polymer sculptures and digitally manipulated photographs, and each illustration is accompanied by a paragraph from the artist; some choose to discuss technique, while others focus on the backstories of characters they've clearly come to adore. Though not for the squeamish, Becket-Griffith and Becket's selections vividly demonstrate the genre's diversity. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

The Majesty of the Horse is one of the finest equine photography books around. Starting with the Asiatic Wild Horse, a stocky, round-nosed breed roaming southwest Mongolia, Tamsin Pickeral provides the history for more than 80 breeds, and while the descriptions are informative, Astrid Harrisson's photographs are absolutely splendid. The Akhal Teke of Turkmenistan looks carved out of peach marble; the tiny, rare Caspian (Iran) is a sepia Dürer drawing; the majestic black Friesian (Holland) is covered by a Lady Godiva rippling mane; the Ariègeois pony (France) has a copper-flecked ebony mane to match its eyes; the Knabstrup (Denmark) is Dalmation-spotted; the russet-colored Don (Russia) is photographed against snowy white birches; the Rocky Mountain Horse (U.S.) peeks coquettishly through a platinum mane.

Each magnificent horse is photographed in close-ups--graceful lines, limpid eyes--or in full-size action: running in the misty Camargue, for example, or prancing through an Indian forest. You may think you have enough horse books, but think again. You need this book. --Marilyn Dahl, book review editor, Shelf Awareness

Our planet's beauty is bounded by danger. Thousands of miles beneath our feet, tectonic plates shift and clash to spawn earthquakes and tsunamis, while Earth's molten core awaits the opportunity to leak magma up to the surface through volcanoes. Meanwhile, in our atmosphere, the highs and lows of pressure systems create hurricanes, tornadoes and other severe weather.

Violent Earth is a comprehensive and current reference book, produced in association with the Smithsonian Institution, combining scientific fact, real world examples and breathtaking photography. Its engrossing coverage of the origins and effects of volcanoes, earthquakes, mudslides, tsunamis and severe weather is perfect for the older teen or adult earth scientist, with an up-to-date timeline of notable disasters up to this year's Japanese tsunami. Bundle this gift with a disaster preparedness manual for extra effect! --Jaclyn Fulwood, graduate assistant, University of Oklahoma Libraries

Nancy Ross Hugo and photographer Robert Llewellyn have put together a tree book unlike any other, meant to teach us not simply to identify a tree and move on, but to discover natural, cyclical phenomena such as the blooming of the sassafras or the acorns plumping out. Trees are wild beings, every bit as worthy of close observation as birds. These miracles of nature do not readily yield their secrets, but careful observation will reap bountiful aesthetic and environmental rewards.

Llewelyn, an inspired and creative photographer, has shot incredibly sharp images, using a white background to emphasize details such as the intricacy of the pinecone or the unfurling of a beech leaf and marvel at nature's wise adaptations. Seeing Trees is a perfect book for naturalists, environmentalists or anyone who has ever taken a walk and looked around. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Nests are more than homes: they are historical artifacts, objects of scientific analysis, and examples of nature's beauty--and all these modes are captured brilliantly by San Francisco-based photographer Sharon Beals, whose discovery of the collection at the California Academy of Sciences will excite bird lovers and inspire environmentalists and conservationists. Twigs, leaves, spider web and cocoon silk, plant down, mud, manmade materials like rope and yarn, feathers and fur, moss and lichen, are woven and spun intricately into baskets to protect the young, then placed in trees, burrows, shrubs, even human dwellings. Some of them are as mystifying as pieces of art, while others serve a practical purpose as decoys to lure would-be predators away from broods. Beals's artistic commentary serves as a lament for man's folly against nature almost as much as it does a document of some of nature's master architects. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

Start with the frontispiece photograph of a Blue Rockfish gazing at a mango orange peony of a Lion's Mane Jelly--no, start with that same jellyfish on the cover of Beneath Cold Seas, a bright UFO gliding below the gray surface of a Pacific Northwest sea--and you can tell you're in for a stunning photography book. Using state-of-the-art equipment, innovative techniques and electronic strobes, David Hall shows us an underwater world surprising to those who think color and diversity belong to the tropics.

Purple and tangerine sea stars prey on mussels amid dark aqua sea urchins; a Mosshead Warbonnet peeks out from a kelp bed; a semi-camouflaged Red Irish Lord nestles over a Sulfur sponge; a harbor seal scratches its back underwater; an adult wolf eel looks like a cranky gray monster; migrating sockeye are seen at dusk against a sunset sky; pale Plumose anemones are as graceful as a ballet; opalescent nudibranchs resemble fireworks.

David Hall has created a dazzling book filled with dazzling sea creatures, showing us an astonishing marine domain. --Marilyn Dahl, book review editor, Shelf Awareness

The Exultant Ark is a romp through the sunnier side of the animal kingdom, packed with lively photographs of animals enjoying themselves--the sorts of things we don't see on grimly narrated nature documentaries about the bloody struggle for survival. On these big, colorful pages, scarlet macaws affectionately preen one another. A mother gorilla embraces its baby. Three furry fox kits tumble and play in the sun. A young elk turns its face into the falling snow, sticks out its tongue, and samples a snowflake.

But The Exultant Ark isn't just about pretty pictures. Biologist Jonathan Balcombe uses spirited descriptions and compelling arguments to implore humankind--particularly the scientific community--to consider our animal counterparts with greater empathy and respect. "Species and populations don't feel pains and pleasures; individuals do," Balcombe writes. "As surely as they each have a biology, each also has a biography." --Hannah Calkins, Unpunished Vice

Entomologist Piotr Naskrecki takes readers not just around the world--from the dense forests of New Guinea and Ghana's remote Atewa Plateau to a beach in New Jersey--but through time as well. The natural world still contains traces of distant epochs past, in the form of organisms and habitats that remain comparatively untouched by evolution. Naskrecki describes his pursuit of these incredible "relics" with an enthusiasm that matches his considerable expertise, and his photographs are so astonishingly vivid the subjects threaten to crawl off the page. The best moment of Relics occurs, somewhat surprisingly, on the Jersey shore, as Naskrecki witnesses the 440-millionth annual mass-spawning of horseshoe crabs. "As strange and distant as [they] may seem," he writes as the crabs drag themselves from the sea, "these majestic organisms remind me that we share the same evolutionary heritage." Revelatory moments like this show how our pre-human history is not as remote as it may seem. --Hannah Calkins, blogger at Unpunished Vice

For centuries, the allure of orchids has kept the botanically inclined under an intoxicating spell. In Deceptive Beauties, National Geographic photographer Christian Ziegler shares his knowledge and experience of these exotic, fragrant flowers, documenting searches for them in their natural habitats.

Ziegler's exquisite color photographs, taken on five continents, capture the visual intricacies of wild orchids, their delicate shapes and unique configurations. The pollination images reinforce the orchid's dazzling mystery and appeal, as does the commentary on the flower's evolutionary history. Discussion of the adapative qualities that enable orchids to survive and thrive in extremes of both heat and cold, from deserts to arctic air, is combined with a showcase of its beauty and bio-diversity, as Ziegler offers greater insight into why so many continue to fall under the seductive trap of this stunning flower. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines