Here are a few books that I have found helpful, informative and even inspiring ... but time and styles move on and these works mainly date from the 1990s. By now almost of these books will be out of print and very hard to find.
Letraset Handbook 93 - Not easy to find this sort of catalogue these days but before digital fonts it was almost an essential. The concept of buying sheets of stick-down text has had its day. But typefaces are more important than ever - so this is still a great reference source.
Type - A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles - Volume 1 1628-1900.
Volume 2 was on my wish list but is now in my library as well.
Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography by Ferrell McCollough.
CorelDraw ArtShow Vol 2
The second (was there ever a first?) in a series of coffee table books produced by Corel Systems Corporation to showcase the entries received for their annual competition.
The HDRI Handbook by Christian Bloch My first purchase on the topic of high dynamic range images - and recommended reading for anyone with a similar interest.
CorelDraw ArtShow Vol 3
Photography from 1839 to today by Taschen Heavy emphasis on the early years of photography but still worth a look.
CorelDraw ArtShow Vol 4
Adweek / Art Directors' Index USA Volume 11 (1985) Over 300 pages of submissions by top graphic artists ...
CorelDraw ArtShow Vol 5
World Graphic Design Now Advertisements (1988)
CorelDraw ArtShow Vol 6
Places
Living in Yorkshire, even if just at the southern edge, makes for a strong bias towards the county when looking of places to capture. And to encourage some others I started a flickr group - HDR Yorkshire. Over time it may grow to provide some new ideas for good locations - to visitors or locals alike.
In addition to the shared images group I also started a Yorkshire Heritage web site - even though I never seemed to get enough time to develop it. It did cover the more obvious places of interest but the domain name has not been renewed. The web pages have been archived in case of a future handover and revival.
Finally Yorkshire has plenty of events - from sporting to historic to pop - that provide plentiful opportunities for photographers in any genre.
Online
It’s hard to know where to start, with so much now available online ...
But how about checking out Stuck In Customs for some inspiration?.