Styleforum › Forums › Lifestyle › Fine Living, Home, Design & Auto › Recommend good coffee table books
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Recommend good coffee table books

post #1 of 50
3/8/09 at 12:00am
Thread Starter 
What coffee table books do you recommend? I'm redoing my flat (it's contemporary) and am looking for some ideas. I'm into art, sailing, landscapes, opera, etc..

Thanks!
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 50
3/8/09 at 12:02am
Coffee table books are like sweets -- tasty but not important. Whatever strikes your fancy, don't over-think it. You'll likely grow tired and replace it after not too long anyways.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 50
3/8/09 at 12:05am
Thread Starter 
Where's the best place to buy them? Local bookstores? I don't know where to look on amazon.com
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 50
3/8/09 at 12:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GITU View Post
Where's the best place to buy them? Local bookstores? I don't know where to look on amazon.com
What are you, four years old? Yes, bookstores carry coffee table books.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 50
3/8/09 at 1:02am
I'm not so into coffee table books, but saw this in a bookstore today and thought that it would make a great one. http://www.amazon.com/Corbusier-Gran...6488472&sr=8-2
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 50
3/8/09 at 1:08am
The Codex Seraphinianus is my coffee table book.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 50
3/8/09 at 1:27am
I think it's important to have a great coffee table...and great books (that you like). I'm just not so sure the two belong together (unless it's a waiting room). Bookshelves are a handy place to keep your books.

"Coffee table books" to me simply mean somewhat large sized hardcover books, that contain mostly pictures, rather than "reading" material. When it comes to these, I find the most important factor is who the publisher is.

Good, widely available publishers I would recommend is...

Taschen
Rizzoli
Assouline

It's also fun to scour used book stores or ebay to find more obscure first editions, rare & out of print books on the subject of your choice.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 50
3/8/09 at 3:09am
My coffee table has the latest issues of Car and EVO on it usually, along with two old laptops people like to fiddle with: an IBM TransNote that has a graphics pad attached and a Sony VAIO C1 Picturebook about the size of a paperback, with a little camera on the display bezel.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 50
3/8/09 at 3:27am
Make sure it has a coaster built into the cover.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 50
3/8/09 at 3:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by iammatt View Post
I'm not so into coffee table books, but saw this in a bookstore today and thought that it would make a great one.

http://www.amazon.com/Corbusier-Gran...6488472&sr=8-2

It's good. On the other hand the idea of coffee table books is retarded and how it is approached by the functionally illiterart class is ridiculous . The way you're supposed to do it is you like books, you like art/design/architecture/pornography/whatever so you buy artbooks. Some are on your coffee table so you or guests can look at them.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 50
3/8/09 at 5:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuuma View Post
It's good. On the other hand the idea of coffee table books is retarded and how it is approached by the functionally illiterart class is ridiculous . The way you're supposed to do it is you like books, you like art/design/architecture/pornography/whatever so you buy artbooks. Some are on your coffee table so you or guests can look at them.

Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends was a great coffee-table book. It gets people talking.

I have my former classmate Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar which should serve the same role.

Jordi Labanda's Hey Day was good for that as well as a memory of a richer, freer, happier time that never existed outside the minds of Tyler Brule and Jordi Labanda, and those marvelous early issues of wallpaper*.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 50
3/8/09 at 6:15am
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 50
3/8/09 at 10:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kent Wang View Post
The Codex Seraphinianus is my coffee table book.

+1. I absolutely love it. It's incredibly interesting and always gets people talking.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 50
3/8/09 at 2:56pm
Good call on the Bourdin (out of print though) and Nitsch book. No love for Nobuyoshi Araki, Taschen got a nice, thick book out (and a limited edition gigantic one).
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 50
3/8/09 at 3:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RJman View Post
Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends was a great coffee-table book. It gets people talking. I have my former classmate Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar which should serve the same role. Jordi Labanda's Hey Day was good for that as well as a memory of a richer, freer, happier time that never existed outside the minds of Tyler Brule and Jordi Labanda, and those marvelous early issues of wallpaper*.
If you like Labanda you might also be into Stéphane Manel.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
Styleforum › Forums › Lifestyle › Fine Living, Home, Design & Auto › Recommend good coffee table books