It's insane that coffee tables are meant to be curated flat lays of our entire identities
And we don't even sit around them. They're just footrests.
Welcome to the fourth edition of Inside Cover, a column about literary goings-on, trends, events, and gossip. In this edition I crash out on consumerism, coffee table books, and curation.
I opened a hollow coffee table book this weekend.
It was an empty cardboard box.
I was shocked. A hollow book is form without function. A hollow book mocks the medium.
I’m trying to make a career out of reading books. I care about what I read. I’m thoughtful about the books I display. I thought coffee table books should be windows into our personal worlds — our interests, maybe even our identities. What does a hollow book say about a person!?
So I was going to write about that. And how to curate a coffee table. With a shoutout to my favorite vintage coffee table and magazine shop in New York City. But I realized that essay might have actually been worse than a hollow coffee table book.
It’s insane that we’ve created a society where coffee tables are meant to be curated flat lays of our entire identities.
Consumerism encourages us to describe ourselves in the objects that we have. To let our objects speak for us, so we don’t have to. Of course it's easier to buy a book than to be ourselves and form our own opinions.
This is not a new phenomenon. A friend reminded me that Jay Gatsby’s library was filled with uncut, meaning unopened and unread, books in The Great Gatsby. The books were a desperate attempt to construct an educated old money identity. Now we have old money aesthetic TikToks for that.
Is a hollow book any worse than a real book that you have no intentions of reading? And is the hollow version of a $975 Loewe coffee table book any worse than the real thing?
Because what does a real $975 Loewe coffee table book say about you, really? That you care about style or design? That you know how to pronounce Loewe? That you might even have taste? Maybe. That you’re financially irresponsible? Certainly.
There is an aspirational quality about the book that is undeniably cheapened by faking it. And yet – it should be cheapened! A $975 price tag is a mockery of books, too!
Modern life, for better or for worse, requires us to curate the things we have. We have coffee tables. We want them to look nice. There will be Loewe coffee table book people. And hollow coffee table book dupe people. Frankly, they are both absurd. I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think it’s to “curate” more “authentic” coffee tables. We’ll just end up like this meme but for coffee table books.
So for now i’ll be hollowing out a coffee table book in my living room and waiting to see how long it takes for my two roommates to notice.
The last edition Inside Cover, What men are reading, is the most viewed post I’ve ever written. Thank you to everyone who read it, and especially to everyone who commented. If you haven’t, there is still time.
I went to High Valley Books this weekend to get a vintage magazine for a friend. I was going to write more about it, but started spiraling about coffee table books and magazines as a concept. Anyway, I like to get friends a magazine from the month and year they were born for their birthday. It’s fun to flip through at the party, and an interesting window into the world they were born into.
I’m reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett right now. I’d never read Ann Patchett before, and her writing is just lovely.
Let me know what books are on your coffee table, where you got them, and how you feel about them. I’m so curious.
All the world's a coffee table !!
Don’t have a coffee table don’t know what that says about me