Best printed books?

I have some old photography books, and the printing is terrible.
In contrast, I have some Lenswork magazines and the printing is fantastic. I would not know that it was not an original silver print.

What books are well printed like these Lenswork magazines?

Any books done after mid-1990s will be of much higher quality and books that are done in the late 2000s and on are quite excellent - if they spend the money. Even Blurb books and other printed on demand using the HP Indigo machines are quite nice and if they spend the money to get the book properly done in a high end printer, then the quality can definitely rival silver gelatin prints and in some cases, according to some: better than silver prints.

If you like portraits check out Avedon's In the American West, the picture quality is very beautiful in my 1993 edition and probably still is http://amon-carter-museum-of-americ...-n-abrams-in-the-american-west-softcover.html

Book printing and photo reproduction has increased dramatically in the past 3 decades, some are slightly better than others but there's still occasional poor printing.

If you want the ultimate then there are collectors books that achieve incredible levels of accuracy. When I did my MA Roger Taylor (now a Professor) showed us some and also individual proof pages for a book on Lewis Carroll being prepared by Princeton University he was contributing the text. (Taylor, Roger; Wakeling, Edward (25 February 2002). Lewis Carroll, Photographer. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-07443-6).

In this book the plates for each individual photograph were proofed to ensure the closest possible match in terms of colour and contrast to the original images, a further level of detail was each image was matched to the corresponding entries in Dodgson's diaries & notes so could be dated accurately. This was a very costly project, I think back in 2001/2 the book was expected to sell at around £300/$450.

Ian