Speaking volumes: the best coffee-table books

The coffee table book is by no means a new concept. Michel de Montaigne lamented in 1580: "I am vexed that my Essays only serve the ladies for a common movable, a book to lay in the parlor window..." But it’s come a long way, baby. No self-respecting parlor is complete without a few artfully displayed works that speak volumes about the inhabitant’s inherent taste and intellect. The already oversized dimensions of the traditional coffee-table tome have given way to positively megalithic proportions, a trend possibly re-launched by design-world superstar publishers Taschen, with their 18" x 12", 6.5 lbs Albertus Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, which brought enormous books to the general public. Seba’s book cover also capitalized on the coral trend in decorating, which possibly explains why it took its place on an unprecedented number of coffee tables, becoming a de rigueur, then over-exposed, element in any room featured in a design magazine.

It is ironic that "TASCHEN" means "pockets" in German, considering that Taschen signaled its transition from comic-book purveyor to arts-world heavy hitter with the publication of its anything but pocket-sized magnum opus on photographer Helmut Newton, SUMO. Vanity Fair stated, "SUMO is the biggest bound volume produced in the 20th century: 460 pages, measuring two and a half feet tall by one and a half feet wide, and weighing 66 pounds." Since this coffee table book was too large to actually place on a coffee table, Philippe Starck designed a unique stand for displaying the book at home.

One of the offerings by Taschen most popular with design professionals is domus 1928-1999, vol. I-XII. The inspirational twelve volume, 7,000 page tome encompasses seven decades of the uniquely influential Italian design magazine phenomenon founded by Gio Ponti and revered for their avant-garde covers and cutting-edge graphic design. The rainbow-colored collection, which received a Wallpaper Design Awards nod in 2007, might look better on a console than on a coffee table, to best showcase the graphic punch of the colorful spines.

For those whose décor hinges on monochromatic texture and shine, Taschen’s Studio Eliasson, Art Edition may be a better choice. Presenting an encyclopedic vision of Olafur Eliasson's experimental art and architecture in XL format, it’s limited to two hundred signed and numbered copies and features a special cover custom made by Olafur Eliasson: a cnc-formed metal plate imitating the prismatic concentric circles left by raindrops on water. A word of warning: bibliophile guests will probably soon transform this so the effect is more fingerprints-on-steel, and the texture makes topping this book with a vase impossible.


London-based Phaidon, with a history of printing academic works, positions itself as a more serious entity than Taschen, in the forefront of visual art and design publishing. They are responsible for the once-ubiquitous coffee table fixture The Art Book. With a few notable exceptions, Phaidon aims to keep books high quality and affordable. Their grandly oversized visual biography of the life and work of visionary architect le Corbusier, aptly named Le Corbusier Le Grand, hits the high end of Phaidon’s price and size spectrum. Housed in a new brutalist-chic cardboard sleeve, this volume will be sure to pair well with your re-issued le Corbusier-style coffee table, or contrast piquantly with a too bourgeois decor.

For those who like their coffee table candy to inflict a little highbrow shock value, Mapplethorpe is out, Phaidon’s Nobuyoshi Araki: Self, Life, Death Special Luxury Edition is in. It covers the work of Japan’s most controversial photographer, where the taboos of sex and death are explored through methodically staged nudes, including rare and previously unpublished photos. This extremely limited edition of 100 individually signed and numbered copies was recently released by Phaidon’s small Collector’s Editions division, which has produced only six works to date. Hand bound in Japanese silk and housed in a red Japanese silk slipcase, the edition includes a print folder. It is priced at the “If you need to ask…” level. But it does make a striking design on your table, probably on its own rather than grouped.


Grouping does suit Phaidon’s Wallpaper City Guides- small and multicolored, there are 60 and counting, and in Pantone-shaded stacks, they would look genius even under a glass-topped table.

New York and Paris based Assouline creates books that are often sighted on the coffee tables of socialites, mostly because they specialize in fluffy books by and about socialites (Rena Sindi, Brooke de Ocampo, Diane Von Furstenburg) and their style, their favorite vacation spots (Hamptons, St Tropez), and some safe exoticism in the form of lush, decoratively colorful tomes such as RAJASTAN. These are coffee-table books in the original sense of the word: not too challenging, nice to look at, good conversation starters. Assouline’s version of The Proust Questionnaire, one of the best-known interview devices used in the media today, checks all of these boxes, printed in a choice of candy colors, leather bound, edged with silver foil, and including blank questionnaires for guests to complete. As one would expect from Assouline, the book includes questionnaires filled by “important” persons such as the aforementioned Diane von Furstenberg, as well as Marisa Berenson, Daniel Boulud, and Rosanna Arquette. Assouline also solves the book packaging and display issue with its Goyard trunk, which houses one hundred of Assouline’s signature “Memoire” books, included in the $20,000 price. The trunk, available in black or white, of course doubles as a coffee table.

New publishing house Gloria, which burst onto the scene with its $8000 Pelé book, specializes in peddling collectible statement hardbacks to high-net worth individuals. This year they are coming out with SuperYacht, which will re-define the “big book” market. Where many coffee-table books have the reputation for barely scratching the surface of the subject matter, the particularity of Gloria books is that they feature original work by the world’s leading writers, thinkers, photographers, and specialists on the given subject. Perhaps more importantly, in a design sense, these tomes make a striking statement both in terms of production quality and integration with subject matter. Superyacht comes in a giant-sized 42cm x 32cm format, with 648 full-color pages including a large proportion of gatefolds, and is bound in silver-hued Italian silk. The whole unit is housed in a wave shaped Lucite case, in which it seems to float, fully protected from water, in case one would actually care to display it in a nautical setting. The set even includes a pair of gloves to ensure the investment- er, book remains in pristine shape.

But there are ways to ensure that even less rarefied books make a strong design statement. Heather Clawson, of critically acclaimed New York-based blog Habitually Chic, is a coffee table book devotee, but she doesn’t limit them to the coffee table. “I have piles of books all over my apartment and actually stacked them up to create a nightstand next to my bed,” she says. “I find them all beautiful and inspiring and I can't imagine my life without them.” Then there are those who organize books by color. Decorator India Hicks has nixed the idea of individual book as décor by covering all of the tomes on her Harbour Island shelves with kraft paper. One of the most modern and arresting rooms in the 2008 San Francisco Designer’s Showcase was the library, where Will Wick displayed books in distressed, string-tied bundles with spines turned in. Probably wouldn’t work well with domus or Superyacht though.