Picturesque Pages

Years ago, my in-laws gave me a gift book, “The Outhouses of New England.” Yes, it was the thought that counted.

I concede my own failure to find a proper retort ever since. Chiefly because no one has yet published an authoritative account of how short, hawk-eyed humanoids like my mother-in-law, in fact, may offer an overlooked clue about the missing link.

Until then, I’m afraid, she has me topped. But I have come to understand that coffee-table books have gift potential beyond the obvious. No need to be so literal this holiday as to give a picture book of English castles to your Anglophile friend, or of scenic highways to your brother the RVer. Mix things up, I say, express a point, open someone’s eyes.

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PAINTING THE TOWNS: Murals of California by Robin J. Dunitz and James Prigoff (RJD, $29.95, softcover, color illustrations).

Here I’m thinking of someone--we all know the type--who fled California. They’re holed up now in Boise, Idaho, writing smug letters home about clean air and houses for $90,000. They usually don’t mention their minimum-wage assembly jobs or that everybody in their subdivision is a chronic complainer from Whittier.

This book will make them homesick. And for the rest, it reminds us of why we stayed. Here is an astonishing, romantic and uplifting survey of the mural art that is now spreading through our cities. An old form, public murals are egalitarian wonders: communities nourishing artists and artists paying them back.

From across the state, this book shows off 300 of the best murals--and the best are very fine, indeed. Included are brief commentaries by artists. It is lovingly assembled by two people who know every alley, building, wall and underpass that have been transformed by painters for the pleasure of those who are traveling through, and living, in our cities.

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EYE TO EYE by Frans Lanting (Taschen, $39.99, color illustrations).

The worst thing about the TV/Information Age is how profoundly it has blunted our sense of wonder. We have come to expect astonishing, and then we find we’re no longer astonished. When it comes to nature this is particularly evident, and corrosive. Nature photography has become corrupt through use of such techniques as manipulating images in a computer or baiting animals to bring them in for a picture.

So here’s a book for a cynical traveler. Its jacket alone is elegant enough to display as a piece of living room furniture. Inside, all the way to the last page, Lanting’s animal images from around the world convey the authentic wonder of nature, and the artistry still possible with the camera. The photographer is a critic of those who would take shortcuts. Take a look why.

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ON ASSIGNMENT USA: National Geographic by Priit Vesilind (National Geographic, $50, color illustrations).

Seldom can you say this: Here’s a book to please anyone. No tricks. Deeply engaging.

There is another reason why it’s on my list of favorites. This volume is an insider’s account of those men and women who went in search of stories, and it serves to glorify shoe-leather journalism.

Year after year, for more than a century, National Geographic has explored our universe and brought it home in picture and story with a degree of artistry that we now take for granted. Here is a recap of some of those explorations--undertaken within the boundaries of the U.S.--told from behind the scenes with power photography pioneered by the magazine.

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CUBA by Eddy Kohli (Rizzoli, $60, color illustrations).

Modern impressionistic photography has taken hold in high fashion and advertising. Here, one of its notable practitioners applies his stylized eye to the forbidden island of Cuba.

The result is a book to surprise anyone with flair and a curious mind. Unwrapping this volume may bring a first reaction: Huh? Next will be: Wow! It’s a torrid narrative of images that are sure to astonish: hands, faces, scenes, landscapes, mood, motion.

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TURKANA: Kenya’s Nomads of the Jade Sea by Nigel Pavitt (Abrams, $65, color illustrations).

I find that Africa evokes two reactions from acquaintances who have not been there: fear and desire. Fear of its turbulence; desire to see its wildlife.

I was a news correspondent based in Kenya and I came to know Nigel Pavitt. We shared a few gin-and-tonics, and I can attest that he is an amazing man: an aristocratic white Kenyan devoted to a whole different idea of Africa. To him, it is home to the most wonderful and astonishing cultures.

The pastoral Turkana people range the arid bush lands of northern Kenya. They are proud, beautiful and beleaguered, and this book draws on Pavitt’s long experience among them. It is a tribute to the Turkana, and a worthy gift for someone still open to the idea that travel, at its best, is about curiosity.

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COLORS OF PROVENCE by Michel Biehn (Stewart Tabori & Chang, $50, color illustrations).

Try this for the person on your gift list who has you stumped. You want to give something pleasing. Here is a book about place and also about how to view a place. Just by imagining the French countryside as a collection of vibrant colors, you are drawn into a new realm of appreciation. And soon you will see just how deeply you can go.

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Books to Go appears the second and fourth week of every month.