The perfect hilarious and heartwarming gift for the festive season! When the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards announced a contest for the funniest animal photo, they received entries from all over the world. Now authors and the original Award founders Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam showcase the best of the best - as well as some never before seen - to present the most joyful photographs of wildlife ever printed. A pelican losing its lunch; a three-headed giraffe; a meerkat having a rough day... this is the must-have book that is perfect for animal lovers of all stripes!

Gypsies is a term bandied about like the vampire bat, conjuring images of mystery, danger, repulsion, derision and disgust. Some call them tinkers, travellers, or even outcasts. They are all wrong. Their name is the Roma, a tribe that emanated from India and brought to Europe a culture infinitely alien to the people who lived there. As once the culture of native North American Indians was regarded with hate and superstition, so too have the Romanies in Europe been harried and murdered and rejected as beyond the pale. But they have pursued their traditions with a tenacity unmatched by Western cultures of church or state. Jarret Schecter sought to define those traditions, to encapsulate both the animation of Romany life and the dispossession of their culture in a so-called modern, civilized Europe. After three years he came to concentrate on the gypsy settlement of Hermanovce in Eastern Slovakia. Over four seasons he has given the lie to prejudice and bigotry, but at the same time demonstrating the hunger and despair, the innate joy and camaraderie of the Roma in Hermanovce. It is not a voyage of love or romance, though the subjects themselves suggest it. It is rather the result of a singular dedication to a truth, and the reality of that truth.

H2O. The Dead Sea. Rain. Acid rain. Heavy water. The Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the source of the Nile. A tap, and on and on More than 1 billion people have insufficient water to sustain life. The World Health Organisation has the figures. The River Jordan, the Biblical epitome of water, is dying, like a man with his throat cut, his blood seeping down a drain. In Water Culture, Francesca Sorrenti of ske group, in collaboration with Ocean Futures Society's Jean-Michel Cousteau, has collected a kaleidoscope of the elemental qualities of water in a series of photographs that are breathtaking to behold in their fantasy and equilibrium. They chose the works of Mario Sorrenti, Nan Goldin, Fabien Baron, Andres Gursky, Eugene Smith, and Boris Michailov, among others, to represent this world. Against these extraordinary images are set the records of the follies of mankind, the greed and despair and ignorance of the source of life that will again leave a bewildered albatross or a seal coated in oil by another Amoco Cadiz that has spilt 250,000 tons of human degradation into the oceans.

When we hear the word ‘reef’ we most often think of tropical coral reefs and, indeed, those are the most diverse habitats with thousands of different species living on them. But reefs can also be found off the coast of Canada, Brazil and even further north. Off Canada’s coast there are both the Atlantic deep-water coral habitat and the Pacific rocky reef habitat. Reefs is a pictorial celebration of the hugely varied marine life on coral, rock and sand reefs all around the world. From the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, to Mabul Island off Borneo, from east African coral reefs stretching from the Red Sea down to Madagascar to the Amazon Reef off Brazil, from the Mesoamerican Reef off Belize to Vancouver Island, the book explores how life on each reef is interdependent. The book also includes examples of how coral bleaching has killed off reefs. Arranged geographically by reef and illustrated with more than 200 colour photographs, each entry is completed with a caption explaining the magnificent natural world on display. From the gender-swapping clownfish to single-cell zooxanthellae, from coral polyps to purple starfish to harlequin shrimp and octopuses, the book is a feast of marine life.

In this beautifully photographed book, the author has captured abandoned places in emotive form: places as dark as time; history forgotten in the folds of the subconscious mind; beauty in decay, a presentation of life open to our personal interpretations. Atmospheric scenes unfold before the light of torches, with glass crunching underfoot, complementing the unremitting sound of dripping water. Creative wall art decorations attract attention, bordering the natural and unnatural worlds with a broad range of colours and exuding micro-organisms with compelling effects. The author describes urbexing - the pursuit of images of the abandoned and ruined - as a drug, a way of life as powerful as a state of mind. This is her world - this is Perth.

This beautifully presented coffee table book includes a 50,000 word narrative by Mike Scott telling the full story of the Waterboys seven-piece band and the making of their album Room To Roam. Covering an 18-month period between Spring 1989 to Summer 1990, The Magnificent Seven includes a vast collection of previously unseen photos of the band on the road, recording at Spiddal House in the West of Ireland, as well as maps, lyrics, manuscripts, and other archival memorabilia.