coffee-table book
See also: coffee table book
English
Noun
coffee-table book (plural coffee-table books)
- Alternative form of coffee table book
- 1976, Robert Plant Armstrong, “The Qualities of a Book, the Wants of a Dissertation”, in Eleanor Harman and Ian Montagnes, editors, The Thesis and the Book, paperbound edition, Toronto, Ont.; Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, published 2002, →ISBN, pages 19–20:
- Nonbooks are of several kinds; but their differences notwithstanding, they all share two common features: they tend to be written for market rather than for intellectual reasons, and they are all means rather than ends. [...] Of all nonbooks, the most conspicuous example is the ‘coffee-table book’. The latter usually find their market by virtue of their decorative assets rather than from any literary or intellectual merit, or for that matter – since such works are often art books – by significantly serving important aesthetic or historical purposes.
- 2003, “In a Timeless Wrap: The Sari is Serenaded as a Living Entity that Defines the Dreams of the Indian Woman”, in India Today, volume 28, New Delhi: Thomson Living Media India, OCLC 213775499, page cxlix:
- Mukulika Banerjee and Daniel Miller serenade the garment [the sari] in their remarkable coffee-table book The Sari. [...] Photographs build the warp and weft of coffee-table books. Words seldom rule and even if written by well-known writers, they have to take second place to the camera's five-colour dominance.
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