Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera by Bryan Peterson

This book is an incredibly helpful resource on how to take photography beyond your point and shoot camera. I found the sections on which aperture to choose and how to meter your shots correctly especially helpful, although I know the whole thing gave me both the theory and the practical knowledge necessary to  improve my photography skills. I would recommend that any photography enthusiast buy this book. The beautiful photographs used to illustrate the points are a benefit.

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos by Michael Freeman

This book goes through what makes a pleasing composition. I found the pictures beautiful and the text helpful to show how the pictures were composed. This book would be very helpful for those looking to improve their composition skills. If you need more detail about the settings to use on your camera to achieve these results, you'll need to supplement this book with another.

National Geographic: The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography by Bob Martin, Richard Olsenius, Robert Clark, John Healey, and Debbie Grossman

I found this guide to be a little dated in places (especially on technical specifications of digital cameras and backing up your images) and a little basic in others (the projects chapter offered some creative opportunities and lots of things that can be as easily and cheaply done through commercial services now and the first chapter felt too basic). Still, it offered good tips and ideas for taking and improving pictures--especially what to think about as far as ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings are concerned. There was a short section on photoshop which was actually less dated than a lot of the other digital information. The pictures used to illustrate the book are beautiful, but some are hard to see because of the binding.