A New Book-Buying Market

This chapter examines the nature and role of visual culture in the domestic sphere and books as gifts. As previously noted, judgements on the status of photographic content are one reason coffee-table books are regarded as superficial. In the post-war era their role as decorative objects and for conspicuous taste appropriation was also regarded as superficial. So what people did with their coffee-table books, that is, display them on coffee tables, gave some commentators another reason to be disparaging about the genre. Despite these assessments of coffee-table books, an expanded post-war, book-buying market embraced the genre. Even if their purchases were for other than the attainment of knowledge. Cultural appropriation through aesthetically pleasing objects was not a new concept, and coffee-table books were considered popular, luxury offerings as gifts. This function was heavily promoted during major gift-giving periods, as is still the case today. Along with pictorial news magazines and television, coffee-table books gained increasing prominence in many homes across America, Britain and Australia.