Coffee-table offerings range from photography to comics

Artists interpret the world around them through different mediums and styles. Three beautiful new coffee table books celebrate the world around us through photography and drawing.

"ANSEL ADAMS IN THE NATIONAL PARKS: Photographs from America's Wild Places," by Ansel Adams and Andrea G. Stillman, Little, Brown and Co., $40 (nf)

Few American photographers are better known than Ansel Adams. His images of American landscapes are unparalleled. From offices to ads and classrooms to homes, his detailed photographs are recognized and appreciated by all.

In "Ansel Adams in the National Parks: Photographs from America's Wild Places," more than 225 photographs — many rarely seen and some never before published — are presented with commentary by Andrea G. Stillman, who worked with Adams in the 1970s, and essays by Wallace Stegner, William A. Turnage of the Ansel Adams Trust, and journalist and critic Richard B. Woodward.

And while the essays and commentaries on Adams give great insight to the photographer, it is the photographer's work, as usual, that is the highlight here.

Adams explored more than 40 national parks in his lifetime, and in each one he captured light, detail and beauty.

Images throughout the book are not sequential in time or location, rather displayed with thoughtful juxtaposition — a close-up silver sword plant in the crater of Haleakala in Hawaii's Haleakala National Park (1948) next to a expansive shot of Fairyland in Utah's Bryce Canyon National Park (1947) and a Nevada waterfall found in the upper section of California's Yosemite National Park (1957) adjacent to an involute cactus from Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (1948).

Adams' love for American wildlands is evident in his images, and there are a lot here to enjoy. This is one book families will enjoy for years to come.

"THE GREAT LIFE PHOTOGRAPHERS," by The Editors of LIFE, John Loengard and Gordon Parks, Little, Brown and Co., $24.99 (nf)

For some 70 years, the photographers at LIFE magazine capture the world around us. No one event was immune — culture, wars, political movements, public figures, politicians, musicians, actors, even your neighbor down the street.

This book features more than 100 portfolios including those of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, W. Eugene Smith, Ralph Morse, Nina Leen, and Joe McNally. And each portfolio includes a short biography.