Books for tables, chosen by people

A coffee table book is a physical argument: that some pictures deserve to be printed at the scale they were made, on paper heavy enough to hold the ink, in a binding that will still lie flat in twenty years. We keep a library of the ones that make that argument well.

What qualifies

Size and weight first. Every entry measures at least 30 centimetres on its longest side, and most weigh more than a kilo. Then the printing: we look for plates, tritones, gravure, uncoated stock, cloth. A book that is merely large does not make it; a book that is beautifully made and slightly small sometimes does.

How entries are written

Our research starts with publisher forthcoming lists, award shortlists and the new-arrivals tables of independent bookshops. Each candidate is checked against public catalogue data for its real dimensions and weight, then written up: a verdict you can repeat, the physical case for the book, and a longer editorial view of at least a hundred and fifty words. A named editor reads every entry and publishes it personally. Nothing goes live without a byline.

Where the links go

We are an affiliate site. Where a book is published by TASCHEN we link to them directly; otherwise we link to Bookshop.org, which passes a share of every sale to independent bookshops in the UK. Where neither can sell a book we say so and link to the publisher without earning anything. We do not show prices, because booksellers change them without telling us and a stale price is worse than none. The full disclosure is here.

The editors

• Eliza Marchant — founding editor

Publishers and press offices: we take cover images only from press rooms whose terms allow it, with a credit on every image. If yours is missing or wrong, write to us and it will be fixed within the day.