The Coffee Table Books I Love, Display, and Give as Gifts
Tammy Renée | Creating the Beautiful Life
9 min read
Paris and French Coffee Table Books
It will surprise no one who knows me to find books about Paris and French life on my bookshelves. What I love about France is the attention paid to beauty and everyday pleasures. Here are three of my favorites that capture different pieces of that world.
Literary Paris: A Photographic Tour — Nichole Robertson
Literary Paris brings together two things I love: books and a city steeped in art and history. Through Nichole Robertson’s photographs, I can wander into old bookshops, libraries, and cafés that have welcomed readers and writers for generations. I especially love the quieter details—the worn charm of these places, a comfortable chair, a corner where I’d happily lose an afternoon.
Life in a French Country House: Entertaining for All Seasons — Cordelia de Castellane
This gorgeous, fabric-covered book is one of my favorites to buy as a gift. Here’s what I love about Cordelia de Castellane: she understands the pleasure of a home that changes with the seasons. This book brings together interiors, flowers, food, tables, gardens, and entertaining in the French countryside in a way that makes domestic life feel rich and meaningful.
Living Beautifully in Paris — Mathilde Favier
Mathilde Favier offers readers a personal glimpse into the Parisian world of interiors, fashion, flowers, food, entertaining, and the people and places she loves. Flipping through its pages feels a little like being shown around Paris by someone who knows exactly where to find the loveliest, more tucked-away places beyond the usual tourist stops.
I’ve always loved coffee table books.
I love to add a stack of intentionally chosen books here and there around my home to add character and interest to a room in a way that feels collected rather than decorated.
But, to me, the best coffee table books do something more.
They invite you to sit and be inspired—wandering through a museum in Paris, stepping inside a country house, studying an elegantly simple room, or admiring an old garden.
Over the years, I’ve collected quite a few, and the books below are among those I actually own, love, and display in my home. Some have been with me for years. Others are newer discoveries. Many are books I love to give as gifts, chosen with the recipients' particular interests in mind.
Thus, I want them to be lovely—and worth opening.
With these parameters in mind, here are twenty of my favorites.
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Art Coffee Table Books
Art is one of my passions, so my first recommendations are from museums I’ve visited. These gorgeous books let me revisit my favorite paintings from those museums simply by opening the pages. They have an enduring quality, are always on display in my own home, and make wonderful gifts.
Do note the size and weight of the two museum books, as they are quite substantial. The Monet book is smaller, but it’s also a wonderful, high-quality volume.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings — Thomas P. Campbell and Kathryn Calley Galitz
The Louvre: All the Paintings — Anja Grebe and Vincent Pomarède
Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism — Daniel Wildenstein
Coffee Table Books About Homes, Interior Design, and a Beautiful Life
Here is an eclectic mix of beautiful home and interior design books that I love.
Drawing from a century of Architectural Digest magazine pages, this gorgeous book—both inside and out—is one of the best for a gift, especially for someone who loves interior design.
A Tale of Interiors — Pierce and Ward
A Tale of Interiors is the book that most closely mirrors my own style. Louisa Pierce and Emily Ward create rooms that are layered, colorful, and full of stories: old rugs, worn textiles, art, family photographs, and the occasional wonderfully odd find. I love how they bring all those things together, and the result is a beautiful, romantic room full of character.
The Perfectly Imperfect Home — Deborah Needleman
I think the title The Perfectly Imperfect Home says so much about the kind of home I want to create. Deborah Needleman writes about the little things that make a room welcoming: a comfortable sofa, a place to sit with a book, pretty table settings, and a bit of quirk. I love that she encourages us to use what we already own and make room for our own tastes. Virginia Johnson’s watercolor illustrations add to the book’s charm.
Live Beautiful — Athena Calderone
What draws me to Live Beautiful is Athena Calderone’s interest in the people behind the rooms. She takes us inside homes with distinct personalities, then shows how collected pieces, layered textures, and thoughtful details give each space its character. I love a beautiful room, but I’m even more interested in a home that feels connected to the life being lived there.
A Well-Kept Home: Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother — Laura Fronty and Yves Duronsoy
This is a different kind of home book, and that's exactly why I love it and chose it for this list. This has been on my shelf for many years. This book doesn’t focus on interior design. Instead, it looks at the quieter art of caring for a home—cooking, cleaning, tending the garden, and caring for linens and furnishings. Laura Fronty draws on the wisdom of her French grandmother, and it reminds me of the simple pleasures found in taking care of my home.
Made for Living — Amber Lewis
I love the way Amber Lewis makes a room feel as though it has come together over time. In Made for Living, she shows how to create that collected, layered look with a mix of textures, old and new pieces, and objects that mean something to you. The rooms are beautiful, but they also feel comfortable and lived in—which is exactly the kind of beauty I want in my own home.
Beautiful Flower and Garden Coffee Table Books
These floral books are not just pretty pictures. They are guides for growing flowers, arranging and living with flowers as well. These six offer me endless inspiration.
Redouté: The Book of Flowers — H. Walter Lack and Werner Dressendörfer
Pierre-Joseph Redouté's botanical illustrations have endured for good reason. There is a precision and delicacy to his work. I love the historical quality of this book as much as the flowers themselves. It is art, botany, and beauty all in one.
Peonies — Jane Eastoe, Photography by Georgianna Lane
If you love peonies, this book hardly needs an explanation. And I’m obsessed with them, especially the pink ones. They are such a beautifully romantic flower when fully opened. Jane Eastoe's book captures this with lush photographs throughout.
Hydrangeas: Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden — Naomi Slade, Photography by Georgianna Lane
Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers, and I enjoy them during their peak season from May through July here in the South. Naomi Slade introduces a wide range of varieties, while Georgianna Lane’s photography captures their beauty and rich variety of colors.
Vintage Roses — Jane Eastoe, Photography by Georgianna Lane
Old roses have a romance that newer varieties sometimes can't quite duplicate. Their names, history, fragrance, soft colors, and imperfect shapes give them such personality, and Vintage Roses celebrates this beautifully. This is a book I return to again and again.
Floret Farm's A Year in Flowers — Erin Benzakein with Julie Chai and Jill Jorgensen, Photography by Chris Benzakein
Erin Benzakein's book makes you want to abandon whatever you're doing and go grow an enormous cutting garden. A Year in Flowers follows the seasons and celebrates the flowers available throughout them, while also offering wonderful ideas for arranging what you're growing.
Flower Couture: From My Garden to My House — Cordelia de Castellane, Photography by Billal Taright
Cordelia de Castellane appears twice on this list because her books combine so many things I adore: flowers, homes, French style, entertaining, and beauty without excessive formality. In Flower Couture, rather than arranging flowers according to rigid rules, it celebrates bringing what is blooming outdoors into the house and allowing flowers to become part of a room's personality.
Beautiful New York Coffee Table Books
I love New York City—always have. For me, it’s the art, the music, the history, and the sense that there is always something interesting to discover just around the corner. I’m drawn to the tree-lined streets, the brownstones, the flower boxes, the storefronts, and the cafés. It’s a city rich with character, and one that changes beautifully with the seasons. These are two of my most-used New York City books, and the two I’ve also purchased many times as gifts.
Walk With Me: New York — Susan Kaufman
This book isn’t primarily about skyscrapers or grand attractions. It’s about neighborhoods, architectural details, charming streets, and the quieter beauty you discover when you walk rather than hurry. Susan Kaufman's photographs capture something I cherish about the city: beneath all the noise and energy, there are countless intimate little worlds.
prettycitynewyork: Discovering New York’s Beautiful Places — Siobhan Ferguson
Siobhan Ferguson gives us a softer, more romantic side of New York that’s easy to miss when you’re rushing from one place to another. Like Walk With Me: New York, this isn’t really about the grand landmarks. It’s about the smaller details that give the city so much character and make an ordinary walk feel like a discovery. I especially like the way this book reminds you that New York is full of quiet little places tucked between all the movement.
How to Choose and Use Coffee Table Books for Your Home
Choose books about things you genuinely love, not simply ones that coordinate with your room. Think about your own interests—art, gardens, travel, fashion, cooking, photography, or whatever you’re naturally drawn to.
Be patient and let your collection grow organically. Over time, that’s what makes them special—because they have a story to tell. I picked some of mine up during my travels, while others were books I simply bought for myself because I knew they would inspire me. Still others were placed on a wish list and later received as birthday or Christmas gifts.
Stack two or three on a coffee table and place a small object or vase on top. Leave a favorite art or flower book open on a stand, like this one or this one. Keep a pile beside a comfortable chair. Change them with the seasons.
And most importantly, open them. The loveliest coffee table books aren't meant to sit untouched.
Beautiful books give us another way of bringing the things we love into our everyday lives.
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