Focusing on some of the most photogenic areas of Europe and the United States, this growing series of books is most notable for its magnificent photographs of the lovely villages and towns of the areas covered in each volume.

With literary and historical references, these coffeetable books include appendices listing the most important sites, markets, festivals, hotels, and restaurants.

Tom Shachtman, Photographs by Len Rubenstein

Honored as the birthplace of the Revolution, the six states that comprise New England are home to some of this country’s most beautiful and cherished villages -- places that preserve and reflect its architectural and cultural legacy. Len Rubenstein’s photographs celebrate all the delights of New England: the fishing villages and towns of the rocky Atlantic Coast, the highlands of its mountain ranges, and the quiet, exquisitely preserved communities in the river valleys. One of the most splendid repositories of American institutional architecture is found in New England’s public meeting halls and churches, and in the industrial mills and factories of the nineteenth century. There is also a rich tradition of domestic architecture: seaside homes clad in weathered gray shingles, white clapboard houses surrounding village greens, and exuberant Victorian gingerbread homes.

Bonnie Ramsey, Photographs by Dennis O'Kain

A region of widely divergent landscapes and peoples, the American South is bound by a tradition and style that make it quite unlike any other part of America. Nowhere is the quintessence of Southern life so intensely expressed as in the villages and towns photographed and described in this book.

The villages of these regions are varied, but those included in this book all have their individual beauty, whether expressed in white clapboard or Victorian brick. This picture of the South is completed by special illustrated features on its horse culture, its churches and cemeteries, and its fabulous gardens.