I don't have a list but I own two that I think are really cool and that I recommend, so I'll talk about them here. The first is called the Photo Ark Vanishing by Joel Sartore. It features the author's photos of now extinct and threatened species, broken into sections based on their conservation status. Each species has a short paragraph with information about the threats that they face. Its definitely on the heavier side in terms of tone, but its a very cool book with some great information. Also, with the photos being by Joel Sartore, its a sight to behold.
Another is one that I just got called A World of Wildlife and its an animal encyclopedia by the Smithsonian Institution. What caught my attention about it was the fact that its broken down into ecoregions. While not a perfect way of formatting an animal encyclopedia (as many species can be found in multiple ecoregions) it really does put into perspective how each animal it covers is connected to the ecoregion it lives in.
