Photography books to get lost in

Photography and illustration books are published year-round, but it's at holiday time that they really seem to start pouring into the stores. It's easy to see why. It can be tough to choose just the right novel for someone on your recipient list, but beautiful coffeetable books have something of a universal appeal.

The coffeetable genre may seem like a bit of a ghetto for books, but really, is there a better place in the house for them to get noticed? That collection of Winston Churchill's memoirs may look great marching across your bookshelves, but will anyone be tempted to pull a book down and leaf through it at your next party? Maybe not, but coffeetable books tend to attract a crowd.

Some feature celebrities, some show spectacular scenery, some delve into a social issue. Some are educational ("Hungry Planet"), others are just plain fun ("Crap Cars," "Bar Mitzvah Disco"). And with their size, weight, and ooh-aah factor, they make for great gifts.

Drive my car
Rarely has a book been more perfectly titled than Richard Porter's "Crap Cars" (Bloomsbury, $15). The 50 cars featured each date back to their own horribly sad chapter in automotive history. Some are gone forever, some are still morosely chugging down the road, but none of them escape Porter's hilarious skewerings.

And deservedly so. The Nissan NX (No. 44) had interchangeable rear ends. The Chrysler Imperial (No. 35) was randomly dotted with so much chrome that it looks "as if it had been attacked by a toddler with an electrolysis kit."  The Subaru XT (No. 30) offered all-wheel drive that worked only when the windshield wipers were on.

Not only cheap cars come in for teasing here. Hummers, Aston Martins, Maseratis, Jags — it seems even the luxury car-makers have a skeleton or two in their garages. Fans of a particular make and model can wail in protest — was the Volkswagen Beetle really deserving of the No. 5 spot? — but Porter shows no mercy. Bring this slim book on a road trip — the passenger can read it out loud to the driver, and in between howls of laughter, you can make a game out of spotting Crap Cars as you fly on past them. The car-crazed and the bus riders alone will cherish this little treasure.

Forever blonde
Marilyn Monroe was so frequently photographed that it's hard to believe she was just 36 when she was found dead. But even if Monroe's image feels unquestionably familiar, you're likely to find a new, surprising take on her in this new edition of Eve Arnold's "Marilyn Monroe" (Abrams, $35). Arnold's book was first published in 1987, but this version contains 28 photos that weren't included in that first edition.

Abrams

Here's Monroe in a jean jacket, script pages clenched in her hand, puckering her pout for the camera. Here she tugs on a roughly twisted braid, staring at the camera as if it startled her. Bending over a store counter (which may be a set), she locks eyes with a baby. The actress may never have taken a bad picture, but she also wasn't afraid to reveal herself as vulnerable and uncertain, sometimes appearing a world away from the colossal movie star she was.

Arnold and Monroe met at a party for John Huston in 1952, and Arnold was the only woman photographer Monroe allowed to photograph her so extensively. They both learned from the experience: Monroe appreciated the fresh image of herself that Arnold's camera created, and Arnold herself says "someone who I had first thought had a gift for the still camera ... turned out to have a genius for it."   

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