 Planet Earth: As You’ve Never Seen It Before Amazon Price: $23.79 |
Coffee Table Coffee Table Book Amazon Price: $67.95 |
 Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Greatest Trips Amazon Price: $25.00 |
As the coffee table became more prevalent in homes it became necessary to decorate these tables with accent items or knick-knacks. The coffee tables main purpose of course was to provide an area in a sitting room where one could place coffee or tea and entertain guests or lounge while reading a book. As rooms began to fill with coffee tables and the people in the rooms needed something to do while sitting there they started resting their books on top of the table.
It started out small and then started to grow. Before pictures were so easily printed in books, the reader would simply place their novel on or inside their coffee table and save it for easy access to continue reading later on. As book covers began to develop more artistic quality it became even more appealing to leave the book out on the coffee table as an accent to the décor. These books were also fantastic conversation starters: “Oh, you’re reading such and such? I love that book!”
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that the coffee table book took the hardcover picture rich form we know and love today. David R. Brower is widely credited with the invention of the modern coffee table book. He developed a series of books that wrote about nature and featured beautiful nature based photographs.
The books needed to be rather large to support the brilliant photographs and give them enough perspective. The first book of the series, if you want to get it for your own coffee table at home was This is the American Earth and it features work by photographer Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall. Eventually Brower published about twenty different titles in the “exhibit format” and that style became the most popular to rest on coffee tables.
The coffee table book today is generally a large hard cover book that’s sole purpose is to sit on the coffee table and be thumbed through by visitors and residents alike. They both inspire conversation and serve to rid the party guests of boredom. Often you can find these types of books in the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices and the like.
The hit sitcom Seinfeld features a famous plotline involving a coffee table book and it is this episode that inspired the creation of the Coffee Table Blog. In the episode, the character of Kramer (played by Michael Richards) decides to produce and market a coffee table book all about coffee tables. The stand out quality of Kramer’s book is that the book itself can become a coffee table because it features two cup holders on the front cover and foldable legs on the back.
The running gag on the episode is that Kramer’s book, even though based on a horribly bad pun, takes off. The character does interviews on talk shows like Regis and Kathy Lee and surprisingly does pretty well for himself with this odd ball idea.
Cosmo Kramer wasn’t the first to come up with a coffee table book about coffee tables though. In fact the British comedy team Smith and Johnes created a coffee table book of their own called: The Lavishly-Tooled Smith and Jones Coffee Table Book. Much like Kramer’s book in Seinfeld, the cover of Smith and Jones’ book was designed to look as though it could double as a coffee table of its own.
Coffee tables are great pieces of furniture and they are even more fantastic because they inspire works of literature. I own a few coffee table books that I love thumbing through on a rainy day or a relaxing afternoon. Do you own any coffee table books? What are some of your favorite coffee table books and what do they do to impact the style of your room?
