'Tis the season for coffee-table music books, with Fab Four and hip-hop fans particularly favored. Seattle Times music critic Paul de Barros and Seattle Times music blogger Andrew Matson offer some gift ideas.

"George Harrison, Living in the Material World" (Abrams, $40) by the philosophical Beatle's widow, Olivia Harrison, is a splendidly turned-out volume tied to the Martin Scorsese TV special of the same name. Packed with beautifully-reproduced photographs (many from private collections), letters and postcards home and other memorabilia, the book nicely captures Harrison's sweet spirit, if not his dark side. More engrossing is the lively, glossy paperback "The Beatles in Hamburg" (Independent Publishers Group, $19.95) by oral historian Spencer Leigh, a scrapbook highlighting Astrid Kirchherr's famously moody black-and-white photos and documenting the band's pill-popping, formative period in the seedy red-light district known as St. Pauli, where the group evolved from Liverpudlian triflers into the quirkily original band the world fell in love with. A must-have, as is "John Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music — The Definitive Life" (Hyperion, $35) by Tim Riley, but only if you can stomach the author's hit-and-miss stabs at BIG THOUGHTS. At 765 pages, it is, as advertised, "definitive," as Riley responsibly deals with the life of the most conflicted (and often cruel) Beatle as well as the myths and voluminous scholarship that have trailed him.

For jazz lovers "Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins" (Abrams, $35), with text by Bob Blumenthal and photographs by John Abbott, is a handsome package notable for its rootedness in the vivid, full-color present, not the black-and-white past that jazz is so often relegated to. Even more dazzling eye candy can be viewed in Matthew Chojnacki's collection of record-jacket art for 45 rpm singles from the 1980s, "Put the Needle on the Record: The 1980s at 45 Revolutions Per Minute" (Schiffer, $39.99). Outrageous, hot-hued, ironic — and, above all, erotic — these images graced the sleeves of singles by Madonna, Prince and others.

Paul de Barros, Seattle Times music critic

Hip-hop and more

Hip-hop scholarship boomed in 2011, due to a whole generation of participants reaching mid to late adulthood at the same time. Dan Charnas led the wave with his rigorous, journalistic chronicle of the business side of the music, "The Big Payback" (New American Library, $24.95). One of the biggest moguls in hip-hop, Jay-Z, has the most artfully laid-out book, "Decoded" (Speigel & Grau, $25), an autobiography interlaced with pages of dissected lyrics.

Grunge rock also reached a generational point this year, with the 20-year anniversary of Nirvana's crossover album "Nevermind." Mark Yarm's "Everybody Loves Our Town" (Crown Archetype, $25) is an oral history with those who were there as it all went down, and it re-creates the era from a variety of points of view. Also worth checking out: "Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution" (Backbeat Books; $19.99) by Jason Draper, for a close look at the enigmatic rock/soul/funk man known as "the Purple One."

On the more visual side of things, there is also a fantastic anthology of Robert Crumb album covers, "R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection" (Norton; $27.95), featuring jazz and blues acts drawn by the famous cartoonist. And the heavy, striking coffee-table book "Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson" (Grand Central Publishing, $50), featuring photos by Richardson, maybe isn't for grandma but it does capture the entertainer looking like a newer, rawer Madonna.

Andrew Matson, Special to The Seattle Times