Recommend good coffee table books

[GITU]

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!

 

[binge]

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.

 

[GITU]

Where's the best place to buy them? Local bookstores? I don't know where to look on amazon.com

 

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by GITU

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.

 

[itsstillmatt]

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

 

[Kent Wang]

The Codex Seraphinianus is my coffee table book.

 

[freshcutgrass]

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.

 

[epb]

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.

 

[DocHolliday]

Make sure it has a coaster built into the cover.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by iammatt

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 marsupialed 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.

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

It's good. On the other hand the idea of coffee table books is marsupialed 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*.

 

[LabelKing]

 

[Treen]

Originally Posted by Kent Wang

The Codex Seraphinianus is my coffee table book.

+1. I absolutely love it. It's incredibly interesting and always gets people talking.

 

[Fuuma]

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).

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by RJman

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 StÃ

phane Manel.