Great photobooks of 2011

AMERICA’S GREAT RAILROAD STATIONS

By Roger Strauss III, Hugh van Dusen and Ed Breslin (Viking Studio, $40)

It’s hard to step into one of America’s great train stations without feeling enhanced — those lofty ceilings and elongated perspectives can jazz up even the most frivolous day-trip. Architectural photographer Roger Strauss and railroad buffs Hugh van Dusen and Ed Breslin pay homage to these living monuments, celebrating how they have endured even as times have changed. Among the stops on their cross-country trip: Philadelphia’s 30th Street station, New York’s Grand Central and a multitude of Union Stations: St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland and our very own. — Dennis Drabelle

Gallery

 The top five fiction and top five nonfiction books as chosen by Washington Post editors, with excerpts from The Post’s reviews.

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VOGUE: THE COVERS ,

By Dodie Kazanjian (Abrams, $50)

At 272 pages, this glossy compendium of 500 Vogue cover illustrations is more compact than your average September issue. Together, these superstars, supermodels, furs, felines and bright-red lips form a technicolor carousel of fashion history. Kazanjian’s vignette of each decade gives the covers clout and a cultural relevance that even non-subscribers will appreciate. — Marie Elizabeth Oliver

THE SPLENDOR OF CUBA : 450 Years of Architecture and Interiors ,

By Michael Connors (Rizzoli, $85)

As this lavish book makes clear, Cuba’s aesthetic encompasses far more than the images we so often see — colorful, decaying buildings; vintage American cars rumbling through the streets; verdant fields of sugar cane. The remnants of Spanish colonial life remain intact in all their splendor: well-preserved palacios and luxuriant villas whose architectural elements embrace styles from the early Renaissance and Mudejar to Gothic and Baroque. Connors and photographer Brent Winebrenner offer a guided tour of these hidden, previously un-photographed architectural gems. — Chris Schoppa

TRUE BRITISH

by Alice Temperley (Rizzoli, $65)

Temperley, the British designer who catapulted from ownership of a humble Notting Hill shop to being a designer of note with a worldwide empire, celebrates a decade of success in this beautifully illustrated fashion book. Each chapter of this personal reflection corresponds to a business year and is enlivened with intimate snapshots, studio shots and images of inspiration. — CS

PREPPY: Cultivating Ivy Style , by Jeffrey Banks and Doria de La Chappelle (Rizzoli, $45)

Can a look of nonchalance bred by snobby social groups at top-tier colleges really be considered meritorious? Judge for yourself by leafing through this lively look at the evolution of preppy through hundreds of stunning, often vintage, photographs of the all-American style. — CS

STYLE BOOK: Fashionable Inspirations

By Elizabeth Walker (Flammarion, $29.95)

Aside from the pithy introduction, there’s almost no text in this charming block of a book, stuffed with more than 400 photographs of men and women in all manner of garb representing fashion at its best, worst and just plain ridiculous. The photographs from different eras come from sources as diverse as ad campaigns, formal portraits, Hollywood studio shots and the runway. — CS