Holiday gift book guides

The Dallas Morning News published its guide to coffee-table gift books today, beginning with "Skyscrapers: A History of the World's Most
Extraordinary Buildings" by Judith Dupré. To see the whole list, click here.

And while you're thinking about gift books, be sure to check out these photo books, selected and reviewed by the Monitor's staff photographers and photo editors.

They range from on history ("Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon," a look at the way Abraham Lincoln's legacy was shaped by images after his death) to celebrity ("Seen Behind the Scene" by Mary Ellen Mark, a collection of backstage photos from more than 100 movie sets on which Mark has worked.)

Some take on serious topics such as "What Matters," a collection of photo essays assembled by David Elliot Cohen that ask viewers to look harder at some of the critical issues of our time, and "Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History," a visual history of the Kurdish people collected and organized by documentary photographer Susan Meiselas.

And then there is "Magnum Magnum," a book assembled to mark the 60th anniversary of the renowned photo agency. This book  is a celebration of the power of photography, a work that the Monitor's reviewer calls "a visual conversation."

To read reviews of these books and see images from them, just click on the links above.