And for the coffee table

What's Out There: Images from Here to the Edge of the Universe, by Mary K. Baumann, Will Hopkins, Loralee Nolletti, and Michael Soluri, with a foreword by Stephen Hawking (Duncan Baird; $29.95) Evolving Cosmos, by Govert Schilling (Cambridge University Press; $40.00)

The pace of astronomical discovery has been so rapid in the past two decades that it seems appropriate, as a yearly routine, to take stock of where the universe stands. These two colorful coffee-table books, however, are far from routine. What's Out There features a comprehensive gallery of color images from Earth- and space-based telescopes. The visual impact is extraordinary, though the organization (alphabetically from "aurora" to "WMAP") seems to defy common sense. It may take a bit of jumping back and forth for the reader to figure out what's out there within such a procrustean framework, but every leap will be enjoyable.

By contrast, Evolving Cosmos, lucidly written by the science journalist Govert Schilling, organizes its material according to the physical processes that govern the universe. Chapters deal with topics such as "creation" (highlighting the evidence for the big bang) and "moulding" (collisions that shaped the solar system). Lovely to look at, Schilling's book provides not only decoration for the coffee table, but food for thought.

Birds: The Art of Ornithology, by Jonathan Elphick (Rizzoli; $60.00)

It takes extraordinary technique to render the texture and iridescence of the plumage and contour of the avian form. Rarer still is the ability to breathe life into paintings of creatures that can be observed only as stuffed specimens, or perhaps as distant flashes of color in the upper branches of trees. So it's not surprising that great ornithological illustrators such as John James Audubon bring to their subject both the ingenuity of a scientist and the soul of an artist.

Now Jonathan Elphick, a writer and zoologist with his own field guide to British and Irish birds to his credit, has brought the work of the great bird illustrators of past centuries together into one lavishly produced, thoroughly researched history of the art form. About a hundred pages are devoted to the works of Audubon's seventeenth-and eighteenth-century predecessors. Eleazar Albin, for instance, published his Natural History of Birds in 1738, featuring the first hand-colored illustrations of British birds. The work of artists such as William Ellis, John Latham, and Sarah Stone reflected the plethora of new species sent home by colonial naturalists around the world. And judging from the last 200 pages of the book, which showcase paintings by Audubon as well as by the finest bird artists of today, ornithological art continues to grow and flourish.

Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, by John L. Behler and Deborah A. Behler (Sterling Publishing Co.; $19.95)

Big-eyed amphibians peer out from nearly every page of this collaborative effort by the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo and the editor-in-chief of Wildlife Conservation magazine. The gallery of close-ups includes dignified portraits of unusual species such as the Malayan horned frog, which resembles a miniature owl, as well as action shots of frogs leaping at insects, dining on snakes several times their size, or even, as in one scandalous photo of Costa Rica's Monteverde golden toad, engaging in a jaunty round of group sex.