Recommend good coffee table books

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by likeitaloud

Isn't that what these books are for? So others have something to do while you are making coffee in the kitchen?

The books are on your table to entertain guests and the house inhabitants, the point is they're supposed to be a shifting selection of the art books you've got in your library and reflect interests you truly have and feel like sharing that day (you don't need to literally shift them everyday). If you're not into art books don't buy some just to put them on a ******* table, you're being a dumbass.

 

[likeitaloud]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

The books are on your table to entertain guests and the house inhabitants, the point is they're supposed to be a shifting selection of the art books you've got in your library and reflect interests you truly have and feel like sharing that day (you don't need to literally shift them everyday). If you're not into art books don't buy some just to put them on a ******* table, you're being a dumbass.

I think it's a solid explanation.

Also this website has a good selection of books (you don't have to order from them) which I personally really like.

 

[binge]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

The books are on your table to entertain guests and the house inhabitants, the point is they're supposed to be a shifting selection of the art books you've got in your library and reflect interests you truly have and feel like sharing that day (you don't need to literally shift them everyday). If you're not into art books don't buy some just to put them on a ******* table, you're being a dumbass.

Yours may be there to serve this purpose. Mine are in my living room to suit my own purposes.

 

[robbie]

edit-refer to fuuma's post.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by binge

Yours may be there to serve this purpose. Mine are in my living room to suit my own purposes.

And what would that be?

 

[freshcutgrass]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

And what would that be?


For some people, it's there just for effect...another decor item they may have seen done in a shelter mag, and copied the "look". You know the way they style shots in crappy shelter mags (good riddance Domino)...books piled just so...as if you couldn't tell they spent 3 hours getting it just so. Usually something cliche like a magnifying glass sitting on top of them.

I've taken to doing that occasionally myself...not "coffee table books" on coffee tables...but I do have a May 1962 issue of Playboy on a side table. I do like this issue, as it has the Playboy Townhouse in it, but it's basically there just for effect.

 

[binge]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

And what would that be?

Being a dumbass.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by binge

Being a dumbass.

As in you bought some just to decorate a table? They don't even reflect areas that interest you?

 

[gdl203]

Do I have to put books on my table? I always thought that was what my bookcases were for...

Seriously, I didn't even think there were people thinking like the OP. I have books - sometimes some books are out because I or someone else picked them from the case - sometimes they lie around for a few days - none were ever purchased for the purpose of being displayed on a table. I'm with Fuuma there - the idea of buying "coffee table" books sounds inane and affected to me.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by gdl203

Do I have to put books on my table? I always thought that was what my bookcases were for...

Seriously, I didn't even think there were people thinking like the OP. I have books - sometimes some books are out because I or someone else picked them from the case - sometimes they lie around for a few days - none were ever purchased for the purpose of being displayed on a table. I'm with Fuuma there - the idea of buying "coffee table" books sounds inane and affected to me.

To be honest my library is full and I'm waiting to have more extra books before getting a new one. So my coffee table also serves to gather excess+current reeading material, which is why it is a little bit overflowing (probably around 35 books in there). Ideally I'd leave 0-5.

 

[Baron]

Originally Posted by RJman

Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends was a great coffee-table book. It gets people talking.
That book cracks me up - I happen to know 2 girls that appear in it. They had agreed to some nude modeling jobs for pay and then this book show up several years later and all their friends see it. They weren't happy.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

I like this one. Just start collecting art books you like and rotate the ones you're most interested in from the shelves to the coffee table. This is on my coffee table right now.

 

[binge]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

As in you bought some just to decorate a table? They don't even reflect areas that interest you?

Not necessarily. Sometimes I'll just like the color of the bookcover and use it as a piece of set dressing. Like a pocketsquare for the living room.

 

[TheFoo]

I understand how it seems ridiculous to buy a book just to display it on your coffee table rather than incidentally leaving out books you read.

But when it comes down to it, I don't see how laying out interesting, beautiful books for your guests is any more contrived than putting guests in the guest room with the good sheets and the good towels or serving them with the good china and silverware. You give guests the best you have to offer as a matter of respect and good manners; you don't insist on subjecting them to the way you would have done things if they weren't there at all.

So, if I see a big, beautiful book that happens to be interesting to me, and I think potential guests would enjoy casually perusing through it, it seems only natural that I'd want to buy it and put it some place where they'd feel welcome to do so.

On a side note, I wish Matt hadn't mentioned the Le Corbusier book. My wife has been planning to get that for me since it came out. I can only imagine the reactions when it shows up on our coffee table.

 

[nate10184]

Not a book but I like to have these out for guests to thumb through (gently).

 

[likeitaloud]

Originally Posted by nate10184

Not a book but I like to have these out for guests to thumb through (gently).

What's special about them?