This link is not a book but a tutorial about light and I found it very illuminating and helpful as far as my photography went.

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm

That link, Andy, has many of the points brought out in the art book I mentioned earlier - JOY OF PAINTING. It looks very helpful for those who do not have good art books available to them.

The book that 1st got me into wildlife photography is called,
" The Complete Manual Of Nature Photography by Guglielmo Izzi and Francesco Mezzatesta" 1981 not a digital camera in sight but packed with great info/techniques that are still valuable today! but nowadays people can afford to experiment thanks to the digital age? do yourself a favour and pick up a copy off Ebay/Amazon etc 250 pages of magic
Cheers
Brian

For broad Nature photography, any book by Heather Angel is well worth a look at. If you want advice about Photoshop, then look at the books by Scott Kelby.

To date my favorite book is Ross Hoddinott's 'Digital Exposure Handbook' which covers:
1 The basics of exposure.
2 Exposure in practice.
3 Ambient light.
4 Flash light.
5. Filters.
6 Exposure in the digital darkroom.
Also his books on Filters & Macro Photography are good.
http://www.rosshoddinott.co.uk
http://www.pipress.com

For those who like websites with good information, her is one that I think is very good
http://www.crhfoto.co.uk/index.htm

Great link Andy. There is a lot of information on here. Looks like I've got some reading to do.

I have always found 'The Photographer's Eye - Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos' by Michael Freeman a real help. It's great on the things that make a strong photo but can't normally be summed up in a quick lesson. It got me thinking about the principles of effective photos and helped me to take less 'almost' shots! I definitely recommend it!

As well as several of the internet sources metioned above I've always thought browsing the local library to be an excellent start.
Many beginers books are very basic, and once you've read/understood them (which can be as little as a few hours or even minutes if you exclude studying the copious pictures) they have nothing much to come back to.
More specialist/advanced books, have information that you'll still want to refer to years later so are worth buying for yourself.

Looking towards suggesting ideas for this christmas, is there anything that has come up recently that adds to the info already in this thread?

Thanks
Archie