The Abrams Encyclopedia of Photography (£27.50) tells you what you need to know, charting and illustrating the main movements and providing a comprehensive biographical listing of the world’s top talents. The Photobook: A History, Volume 1 by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger (Phaidon £45), a thorough account of photobooks in the last century, has a general appeal a nd will be essential reading for aficionados.

It is the ability to record the ordinary, seemingly unimportant detail that makes photography so democratic. Two volumes demonstrate how moving the simple snap can be. We Are the People by Tom Phillips (National Portrait Gallery £25) is a collection of postcards of ordinary folk from the first half of the 20th century, both valuable and revealing. Pedro Corr ea do Loga’s fascinating True to the Letter (Thames & Hudson £29.95) is a feast of anecdotes and vignettes comprising more than 400 illustrations of letters and documents spanning 800 years from Elizabeth I to Maria Callas.

In the same mood, Anonymous by Robert Flynn Johnson (Thames & Hudson £19.95) gives us 220 images by unknown photographers whose images are fresh and unpremeditated. Even less sophisticated but hugely charming, Postcard Dogs by Libby Hall (Bloomsbury £12.99) collects Edwardian portraits of people and their pooches, from a grand socialite to a group of Tommies — both with jack russells, clearly the dog of their day.

These images have the ring of truth not always found in the work of professional photographers. To see how good portrait photography can be, turn to Face to Face by Paul Ardenne (Flammarion £40), a selection of more than 200 portraits and a roll call of the great names of the genre which, amazingly, provides us with many images previously barely seen. In the same class, The Great Life Photographers (Thames & Hudson £24.95) features the work of the photographers who, for more than 60 years, recorded the historic moment and revealed the hidden sides of life for the great magazine Life; it is a visual history book for our time. How such news shots are obtained is revealed in the marvellous Magnum Stories (Phaidon £45). Sixty-one of the photographic agency’s photographers show how some of the world’s best pictures were taken, edited and laid out in order to make the perfect statement. Equally as evocative, Last Heroes: A Tribute to the Olympic Games by Olivier Margot (Assouline £65) is a large-format folio of classic images from the games, including a statue of a discus thrower from 400BC, Leni Riefenstahl at the 1936 Olympics, Mark Spitz in Munich in 1972 and Colin Jackson by Herb Ritts in the 1990s.

As Picture Machine: The Rise of American News Pictures (Abrams £24.95) makes clear, America’s news-wire services were the driving force behind the hard-hitting visual coverage of all aspects of American life and culture. This book brings alive the mid-century decades of the most advanced photographic news culture in the world. Britain caught up with Picture Post, whose greatest star was Bill Brandt, celebrated in two fine books this year. Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera (Aperture £19) gives a brief, intelligently illustrated picture of his career while Bill Brandt: A Life by Paul Delany (Cape £35) is an in-depth assessment of the life and achievement of this complex, reclusive and amazingly talented man. It is an essential book for photography buffs, as is Stieglitz: A Beginning Light by Katherine Hoffman (Yale £25), the first book to examine closely Stieglitz’s groundbreaking work pre-1917. He was a pioneer not only as a photographer but also as a tireless champion of an art form that at the time was often considered trivial. Married to Georgia O’Keeffe, Stieglitz was a visionary, and this handsome book is a worthy tribute.

Stieglitz was also mentor to Paul Strand, who spent three weeks with O’Keeffe in 1918 discovering the dry magic of the American southwest, a period covered in Paul Strand: Southwest (Aperture £27.50), a warm account of his development as photographer and man.

Wide open spaces (and the wildlife that lives in them) respond well to the camera. The view from the air is captured in stunning pictures in Earthsong: Aerial Photographs of our Untouched Planet by Bernhard Edmaier (Phaidon £35). At ground level, Call of the Desert: Sahara by Philippe Bourseiller and Untamed by Steve Bloom (Abrams £29.95 each) are magnificently produced looks at, respectively, land and wild animals. The patterns of nature are the basis of DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM Ltd £100). This two-volume boxed set, exploring everything to do with camouflage, in the wild, in military dress, in fashion, is a definitive work containing thousands of images.

These three books are perfect for armchair travellers who respond to colour; but for me they are outclassed by Lost Africa: The Eyes of Origins (Assouline £80), a portfolio of loose-leaf black-and-white photographs with quotations from Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Isaak Dinesen and Wilfred Thesiger. It is a collector’s item. So is All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton 1852-1860 (Yale £35), the first fully comprehensive study of the British pioneer of photography who was the driving force behind the founding of the Photographic Society, and a useful read before Tate Britain’s Fenton exhibition next autumn.

From a different era, but equally of its time is The Complete Collection of Antiquities from the Cabinet of Sir William Hamilton (Taschen £100). This is a facsimile of the engravings published in Italy between 1767-76 by Hamilton, Britain’s diplomatic man in Naples, as a record of his collection. A magnificent book, it will become invaluable for anyone interested in the ancient world, the man himself and 18th-century Italy.

Out-and-out glamour is found in The Cartier Collection (Flammarion £250). For jewellery enthusiasts in general and Cartier freaks in particular, this is the first of three projected volumes drawing on the firm’s archive. Beautiful photographs and expert text tell not only the history of Cartier but also of taste in the past 100 years.

Available at Books First prices plus p&p on 0870 165 8585

BESTSELLERS 2004

1. Earth from the Air, 366 Days
by Hervé le Bras
(Thames & Hudson) 19,152

2. Earth from the Air
by Yann Arthus-Bertrand
(Thames & Hudson) 11,280

3. Through the Lens
by Leah Val-Bendavid
(National Geographic) 7,091

4. Century
by Bruce Bernard
(Phaidon) 5,690

5. The Art of Looking Sideways
by Alan Fletcher
(Phaidon) 3,369

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist