There’s nothing that goers together so well as a fine oak coffee table, some cups of freshly brewed coffee, and one or two coffee table books. But where and when did the Coffee Table book phenomena appear, and why has it endured to this day?

But first what do we mean by a coffee table book? There really is no formal definition, but they typical coffee table book is large, has colour photographs or illustrations, and tends towards the non-fiction. It may be a book celebrating an artist or sculptor, or a particular school of the same. Maybe one about countries of the world, or wildlife. The idea is for it to be a book that someone at the table will pick up and flick or browse through, admiring the pictures and perhaps reading just a little of the text. In this way a friend or guest can alleviate any tedium whil awaiting others to join him or her. And the most important thing is that it can usually mean that you don’t have the television on!

A man called David Brower is sometimes credited with inventing the “modern coffee table book”. The first such book, “This is the American Earth”, was published in 1960; the series became known as the “Exhibit Format” series, with 20 titles eventually published.

The concept of a book intended essentially for display and perhaps only minor perusal was mentioned much earlier by one Michel de Montaigne in 1580 in his essay Upon Some Verses of Virgil. He said  “I am vexed that my Essays only serve the ladies for a common movable, a book to lay in the parlor window…”^. Laurence Sterns in his 1759 comic novel The Life & Opinions of Tristam Shandy”  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..”  So the parlour book was ready to evolve into the coffee table book from quite some time ago.

National Geographic magazines were a must for the coffee table in many American Homes, whereas in Britain, the hardback large coffee table book was favoured. During the 1980s a trend developed in Britain for the coffee table book to be a humourous annual of well-known TV series such as Monty Python, Alas Smith & Jones,  One Foot in the Grave and Last of the Summer Wine.

Sadly, these days, a widescreen HDTV is likely to be switched on and render any books or magazines on the table impotent. Fight back! Select your square coffee table books online and get them delivered. Shock your friends with a return to coffee table book culture!