Acoffee table book, also known as acocktail table book[citation needed], is an oversized, usuallyhard-covered book whose purpose is for display on atable intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and which can serve to inspire conversation or pass the time. Subject matter is predominantlynon-fiction andpictorial (aphoto-book). Pages consist mainly of photographs and illustrations, accompanied by captions and small blocks of text, as opposed to long prose. Since they are aimed at anyone who might pick up the book for a light read, the analysis inside is often more basic and with lessjargon than other books on the subject. Because of this, the term "coffee table book" can be usedpejoratively to indicate a superficial approach to the subject.[citation needed]
In the field of mathematics, a coffee table book is usually a notebook containing a number of mathematical problems and theorems contributed by a community meeting in a particular place, or connected by a common scientific interest. An example of this was theScottish Book created by mathematicians atLviv University in the 1930s and 1940s.
According to different estimations, the 1992 bookSex byMadonna (pictured) is both the fastest-selling and best-selling coffee table book in publishing history.[1][2]
The concept of a book intended essentially for display over perusal was mentioned byMichel de Montaigne in his 1581 essay "Upon Some Verses of Virgil": "I am vexed that my Essays only serve the ladies for a common movable, a book to lay in the parlor window..."[3] Almost two centuries later,Laurence Sterne in his 1759 comic novelThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman advanced the more lighthearted view that "As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and... be no less read than the Pilgrim's Progress itself- and, in the end, prove the very thing Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour window..."[4]
Beginning in the late 1940s, publisher AlbertSkira and a few others, such as Cailler and Editions Tisné, Éditions Mazenod, andHarry N. Abrams, began producing largefolio and quarto (4to) format art books, illustrated withtipped-in color plates, that were significant in the development of coffee table books as known today.[5][6][7]
David Brower is sometimes credited with inventing the modern coffee table book.[8] While serving as executive director of theSierra Club, he had the idea for a series of books that combinednature photography and writings on nature, with, as he put it, "a page size big enough to carry a given image’s dynamic. The eye must be required to move about within the boundaries of the image, not encompass it all in one glance." The first such book,This Is the American Earth, with photographs byAnsel Adams and others and text byNancy Newhall, was published in 1960; the series became known as the "Exhibit Format" series, with 20 titles eventually published.[9]
The term "coffee table book" appeared inArts Magazine in 1961,[10] and in the title ofThe Coffee Table Book of Astrology, published in 1962.[11]
Coffee table books have been featured in several areas of popular culture.
In the 1980s, British comedy duoSmith andJones releasedThe lavishly-tooled Smith and Jones Coffee Table Book[15]—its cover was designed to look as if the book could double as a coffee table.
The 1987 comedyThrow Momma from the Train has a running joke about one of the character's attempts to write a "coffee table book"; the book is a list of female celebrities he'd like to have sex with.
The fifth season (1993–1994) of the sitcomSeinfeld included astory arc involvingKramer wanting to write acoffee table book about coffee tables which would have legs built into the back cover and coasters built into the front cover, so the book itself could be turned into a small coffee table.Elaine Benes, who worked for Pendant Publishing, did not think that Kramer's idea was any good, but her boss (Mr. Lippman) learned about it from Kramer himself and turned it into a book, much to Elaine's dumbfounded surprise and dismay.
In the 2012Family Guy episode "You Can't Do That on Television, Peter", Peter states that he,Joe Swanson andGlenn Quagmire are making a coffee table book oflesbian butts in 1980s jeans.
^Dufrêne, Bernadette (2002) L'édition d'art des années 1950-1970 : des promesses non tenues ?, Communication et langages. No. 134, 4 ème trimestre 22-38 pp. [Dufrêne, Bernadette (2002). The Art Edition of the 1950s and 1970s: Unfulfilled Promises? Communication and Languages, 134(4): 22-38.]
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The dictionary definition ofcoffee table book at Wiktionary
