'GMA's' Favorite Coffee-Table Books of 2008

Dec. 18, 2008 — -- Each holiday season, the "Good Morning America" anchors choose their favorite coffee-table books of the year. Some of the books are so beautiful and inventive, they qualify as works of art, and they make great gifts for a loved one.

Find favorites from Diane Sawyer, Chris Cuomo, Robin Roberts, Sam Champion and Kate Snow below.

Diane Sawyer's Pick

Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound

Seven elaborately produced, full-color pop-ups portraying dozens of bird species in diverse North American habitats, with complete descriptions of the habitats and birds at the back of the book

By Miyoko Chu, director of communications at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Pop-up "engineering" by Gene Vosough, Renee Jablow and Andy Baron Publisher: Chronicle Books

Cost: $60 - AAA batteries included!

Chris Cuomo's Picks

American Road Warriors: Classic Muscle Cars

A great gift for the gearhead in your life. Editors at Car and Driver magazine present a one-of-a-kind look at classic American muscle cars; contains original articles from the cars' first releases, detailed road-test entries that review each car in depth and vintage ads

Edited by Ted West

Publisher: Car & Driver,Filipacchi Publishing

Price: $24.99

We Interrupt This Broadcast

A look at moments in history that you remember just where you were when it happened; comes with three audio CDs with more than two hours of original broadcasts; features broadcasts of the Hindenburg crash, Princess Diana's death, Sept. 11, Richard Nixon's resignation, the Cuban missile crisis and many more

By Joe Garner; foreword by Walter Cronkite; afterword by Brian Williams; narrated by Bill Kurtis

Publisher: Source Books

Price: $49.95

Robin Roberts' Picks

Wisdom

Unique insights and wisdom from an extraordinary group of people older than 65 who have all made their mark on the world; Archbishop Desmond Tutu was involved in the conception of the project, with award-winning photographer Andrew Zuckerman; the 51 participants include Nelson Mandela, Clint Eastwood, Henry Kissinger, Billie Jean King, Ted Kennedy, Jane Goodall and Robert Redford; includes a 60-minute DVD of interviews with the subjects; royalties from sales of the book will be split 51 ways and donated to the charities of their choice
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Photographs by Andrew Zuckerman

Edited by Alex Vlack

Publisher: Abrams

Price: $50

Vanity Fair: The Portraits, a Century of Iconic Images

Photos of celebrities spanning decades and personalities, including Pablo Picasso, Amelia Earhart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Miles Davis and Julia Roberts, by superstar photographers from Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton to Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino; more than 100 color and 200 black-and-white photographs; 348 pages.

By Graydon Carter and the editors of Vanity Fair

Publisher: Abrams

Price: $65

Ailey Ascending: A Portrait in Motion

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the book includes original black-and-white and full-color photographs by acclaimed photographer Andrew Eccles; the book captures the dancers in performance, behind the scenes, and in stunning portraits; with a foreword by artistic director Judith Jamison, the book reveals the passion and beauty of the award-winning dance theater like never before

Photographs by Andrew Eccles

Foreword by Anna Deveare Smith

Preface by Judith Jamison, artistic director of the company for nearly 20 years

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Price: $50

Sam Champion's Pick

The Call of the Trains

Jim Shaughnessy has pulled together a book of railroad photographs. Shaughnessy began shooting in the late 1940s, capturing the end of steam in the northeastern United States, Canada and Mexico.

He started shooting trains and the railroad environment in 1946 and is still active today at the age of 74.

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Price: $65

Planet Earth: An Illustrated History

Time presents an unrivaled portrait of planet Earth: its violent history, its vast oceans, its constantly changing geology, its life-sheltering atmosphere, its fascinating life forms and its imperiled climate.

Time joins scientists in the field, visits with indigenous people and consults with experts and shows the earth's extremes: the longest rivers, tallest mountains and driest deserts on the planet.

By the Editors of Time Magazine

Publisher: Time Inc.

Price: $29.95

The Circus 1870-1950

This book follows the history and legacy of the circus in the United States with nearly 900 color and black-and-white photos. It gives behind-the-scenes shots of the performers, cheesecake shots of starlets and "freaks" and amazing shots of the posters used to advertise the shows.

The images are from the mid-1800s to mid-1900s and show traveling circuses that performed for audiences of up to 14,000 per show, employed as many as 1,600 men and women and crisscrossed the country on 20,000 miles of railroad in one season alone.

Edited by Noel Daniel; text by Linda Granfield and Dominique Jando

Publisher: Taschen

Price: $200

Kate Snow's Pick

The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages

For the first time ever, every front page of every issue of The New York Times from September 1851 to the present has been assembled and published in one book and DVD package.

The book showcases more than 300 reproductions of the most significant front pages ranging from the Emancipation Proclamation, Nazi Germany's attacks on Poland, John Glenn's orbit of Earth to Sept. 11, 2001 to the present.

The three DVDs contain the remaining 54,267 front pages.

Edited by Bill Keller with essays by Times writers past and present

Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers

Price: $60

Wildlands Philanthropy: The Great American Tradition

This celebrates natural landmarks around the world and the people who invested their wealth to protect them and includes pictures of sites from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego and around globe.

The book has more than 350 pages and 170 color photographs.

Photographer Antonio Vizcaino

Writer: Tom Butler; foreword Tom Brokaw

Publisher: Earth Aware Editions

Price: $65

Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities

The book shows natural affinities that suggest parallels in their visions of both natural and human-made environment with more than 100 beautifully reproduced paintings and photographs. They are accompanied by critical essays and a biographical essay on the friendship between Adams, O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.

Photos by Ansel Adams; paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe

Text by Barbara Buhler Lynes, Anne Hammond, Richard B. Woodward

Publisher: Little, Brown

Price: $40