Make a (Pandemic) Statement. With a Coffee Table Book.

Coffee table books are gorgeous and grand. We could all use a dose of both.

Photo by author.

Coffee table books reveal so much about a person. I mean if you’re willing to shell out $30-$100 for a book, it probably screams a keen interest of yours.

Remember the days when we attended dinner parties? Delicately thumbing through the host’s perfectly stacked stacks, getting a sense of what she and her loathsome new live-in boyfriend were all about? Immersed in that stunning book on cabin porn while the other guests circulated around you? (I don’t blame you; it’s a good one.)

Coffee table books are a unique literary creation and have become a gift-giving go-to.

I also suggest that coffee table books now offer a gorgeous, oversized antidote to the sameness of quarantine life.

History.

The idea of a coffee table book goes back as far as the 16th century when French humanist philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote:

I am vexed that my essays only serve the ladies for a common movable, a book to lay in the parlor window.