Some bright books for giving

"Fishing Flies: A World Encyclopedia of Every Type of Fly," by Malcolm Greenhalgh and Jason Smalley (Firefly Books, $40)

The first known English-language treatise on fly fishing, published in the 15th century, described just 12 flies needed to imitate various insects consumed by fish. Five centuries later, anglers are still casting artificial flies that are remarkably similar to those ancient ones. Today's angler must choose from more than 100,000 artificial flies, known as "patterns." Inventive fishermen for centuries have been creating new ones; just trying to keep them straight is one of the pleasant mysteries of the sport. Writers have long tried to help, publishing pattern books, fly dictionaries and encyclopedias. "Fishing Flies" is the latest such compendium and one of the best. It has superb photography and color reproduction on nearly every page, along with information about every category of fly, thousands of patterns and interesting details about the flies' origins and use.

DAVID SHAFFER

"London: The Story of a Great City," by Jerry White (Andre Deutsch, $50)

"William Shakespeare: His Life and Times," by Kristen McDermott and Ari Berk (Templar Books, $19.99)

Illustrated history books with facsimiles of antique documents have become popular in recent years, and these two books do it nicely. "London" is a lovely history, with color photographs and an intelligent text. (White is the author of several prize-winning histories of London, and a professor of London history.) The facsimile maps, photographs and documents are reproduced from originals at the British Museum and are cleverly packaged so as to not distract from the flow of the book. "William Shakespeare" is a little more pop-up-book-ish, with flaps and envelopes and fold-outs on every page. Designed as a faux scrapbook of his career for his daughter, it's lovely and lively and might turn your kids -- who knows? -- into little Anglophiles.

LAURIE HERTZEL

All the fun and agony of scrolling through microfilm has just been eased; this collection of New York Times reports about the Civil War contains 600 articles, augmented by photos and etchings of the day and introduced by former President Bill Clinton. A searchable CD tucked into the front cover, though, includes everything -- more than 10,000 articles published between April 12, 1861, and May 28, 1865. This is an amazing resource, attractive, useful and well organized. The book is great for browsing; the CD is invaluable for serious, focused research.

L.H.

"X'ed Out," by Charles Burns (Pantheon, $19.95)

Burns solidified his stature as one of the comic book medium's true masters with "Black Hole," his disturbing, allegorical tale of teen angst and sexual malaise. He returns with another mind-bender, this one following a young man whose unspecified head injury has him floating between real life and a gruesome fantasy world. Burns' haunting line art finally gets the full-color treatment, bringing the first volume of his latest epic to startling life.

TOM HORGEN

And you thought health care was bad now. In this dystopian piece of high-concept sci-fi, the future of human genetics is caught in a tug-of-war among violent gangs, mad doctors and malicious corporations. Think "Blade Runner" but with more violence and overly sexualized imagery -- all courtesy of the eye-popping art team of Fox and Cox. The story was first serialized in the adult-fantasy magazine Heavy Metal, but its scope is more fully realized in this oversized whopper of a graphic novel.

TOM HORGEN

"DC Comics: The 75th Anniversary Poster Book," by Robert Schnakenberg (Quirk, $40)

In the case of this stunning collection, you really should judge a book by its cover. Now 75 years old, the publishing home of Superman and Batman has produced some of comicdom's most iconic covers -- from Joe Shuster's introductory image of the Man of Steel in "Action Comics" No. 1 in 1938 to Alex Ross' photorealistic portraits of superhero power in the modern era. This massive book presents 100 covers, each perforated and ready to hang on your wall.

T.H.

What a great way to be introduced to Jane Austen -- in a big, lush (but, oddly, not terribly heavy) illustrated book, with explanations, definitions, annotations and other marginalia. Spacks, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, has combed the text for arcane language and references, and also has stepped in to explain and remind readers of plot points. (In Darcy's famous letter to Lizzie, for instance, Spacks notes a sentence that is "another hint that Darcy believes Elizabeth in love with Wickham." Oh, foolish Elizabeth!) Readers familiar with the story will have great fun poking around in the annotations; new readers will find plowing through 19th-century English a little easier.

L.H.

"Audrey 100," by Ellen Fontana (Sterling Press, $40)

If you're in the market for a collection of 100 large-format black-and-white photos of the winsome, doe-eyed Audrey Hepburn, look no further. The book has a brief foreword by Hepburn's son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, and then after that it's just page after page of big eyes and impish smiles. After all these years, she's still adorable.

L.H.

Here they are, all three "Dragon Tattoo" mysteries, cloth bound (no dust jackets), deckle-edged and slipcased. They're packaged with a fourth book, "On Stieg Larsson," a slim collection of essays and correspondence. It seems an overly serious and important treatment for what is, essentially, a bunch of crime novels, but this time of year gift books are pretty serious business.

L.H.

"Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts," edited by Art Spiegelman (The Library of America, $70, slipcased)

Known as the father of the graphic novel, American artist and illustrator Lynd Ward wrote six wordless books in the 1930s, telling his stories entirely through wood engravings. The first, "God's Hand," is the melodramatic tale of an artist who signs a pact with the devil and falls into sinful ways before being rescued by a lovely goatherd. All six novels are collected here, introduced and edited by Art Spiegelman (who calls his introduction "a few thousand words on six books without any"). It's interesting to note the power of these wordless stories, as well as to observe the evolution of Ward's style -- from heavily Art Deco to echoes of Rockwell Kent and Albrecht Dürer, from dark, heavy images to finer, lighter illustrations.

L.H.