Pretty coffee table books can elevate practically any space and these are some of the prettiest coffee table books for styling around your home. Picture two stacked books in a tray on a linen tufted ottoman, a book styled with a round candle or decorative object on top, or shelves styled with books. Sounds cozy and inviting, right?
Finding beautiful coffee table books to decorate your home with is a fun way to spend an afternoon. From interior design books to famous literary works, art, fashion, cars, and travel, coffee table books are not relegated to just one topic. What matters is the look you are going for, and whether the subject matter inspires you.
Read on for inspiration on how to use pretty coffee table books as home decor, where to buy books, and how to style your home with coffee table books.
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Where to Buy Great Coffee Table Books
Between brick-and-mortar and online retailers, there is no shortage of places to buy coffee table books. Really, you can find coffee table books wherever books are sold.
What matters is both the overall look of the book as well as the subject matter you prefer. I love interior design books, and my collection is sizable and ever-growing. Give me a charming house story in Home at Last: Enduring Design for the New American Home by renowned architect Gil Schafer III, and I am set for an evening of getting lost in his world. Whatever story moves you, that's what you should surround yourself with - art, travel, interiors, fashion, cars - there is no wrong answer here.
Over the years, I have found wonderful sets of books at thrift stores, antique shops, discount retailers, online, and name brand Big Box stores. Yes, I have purchased a book based solely on the cover alone and lived to tell the tale. Call it occupational necessity.
I always pay attention to price when I am looking for a specific book or a specific subject matter. Since most current in-print books can be considered a commodity, price may drive your decision about where you buy books too.
Best Places to Find Coffee Table Books:
T.J.Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods
Some of the prettiest coffee table books I own are from T.J.Maxx and HomeGoods. Not only do they have some of the lowest prices for coffee table books, but they usually have the latest home decorating and interior design books, two topics I love. If you don't have the patience to wait for a specific book to come in stock locally or on their website, you should be able to find the same book from another retailer.
Amazon
Amazon's book selection is legendary. Selling books is how Amazon began, after all. Amazon is probably first or second when it comes to lowest price. They have a significantly wider selection of books, which makes it easier to get what you want, when you want it - new or used. Amazon also runs a buy two for the price of three sale several times a year you should watch out for.
Many (many) of my books have come from Amazon. I also like that you can easily pre-order books. Did you know that if the price drops prior to release, you automatically get the lowest price? Then the book arrives when it's released!
Local Bookstores
Aside from finding books online, check out any local bookstores near you. It helps support your local economic community. Today, local shops are more open to matching prices for the same item online to get the sale. Bring proof of the price with you to the store.
Thrift Stores, Antique Shops, and Garage Sales
If you have a super low budget for decorative books, consider buying your books second-hand. Local thrift stores, Goodwill, arc Thrift Stores, Salvation Army, garage sales, eBay, and ThriftBooks provide ample opportunities to find nice looking but inexpensive books to decorate your home with. You can always DIY a not-so-pretty book by painting it or covering it with a DIY No-Sew Book Cover like I did.
Coffee table books also make wonderful gifts, as I've written about in my Gift Guide: 15 Giftable Coffee Table Books. Sometimes friends or family do not want to spend money on what may seem like a frivolous book. Instead, you can give them that special book they've been pining for as a thoughtful gift.
How to Decorate with Coffee Table Books
The phrase coffee table books is kind of a misnomer. When decorating with books, you are not limited to styling a coffee table. You can use books to style all around your home.
Styling a coffee table with books is an interior tried-and-true decorating designer's go-to for elevating a space. I like to keep stacks of books on top of our ottoman, as I am always grabbing for a book to read in the evening.
Use books for shelf styling by leaning books against objects, making stacks of 2 or 3, setting a decorative box on top, or placing a book under a vase.
Shop the photo: Small round white terracotta cachepot vase | Tall white medium cachepot vase | Tall white large cachepot vase | Faux hydrangea flowers, white and light green | Woven leather laptop case cover | Rechargeable lamp, cream/taupe | Woven genuine leather ottoman (similar) | Alpaca plaid throw blanket (similar) | Plaid grid bone inlay box (small and large) | Rattan chain links | Large paper mache bowl (similar) | Bone inlay box large (similar) and bone inlay box small (similar)
Elevate a console table with pretty books and drape decorative rattan links on top.
Shop the photo: Tall white large cachepot vase | Faux hydrangea flowers, white | Woven genuine leather ottoman (similar) | Rattan chain links | Blue cotton cable knit throw blanket (similar) or Blue cable knit cashmere throw blanket | Table lamp
Place pretty books under a lamp to add height and interest.
Shop the photo: Grey mini table lamp | Marble fluted edge tray (similar) | Marble pencil holder (similar) | Phone stand holder for desk, pink | Kinfolk Home book | Gather at Home book | Aesthetic highlighters
Place books in a tray to keep home decor pieces connected and organized.
You can also use books to decorate nightstands. Our nightstands have a shelf underneath the top that I love styling with different things. The shelf was one of my criteria when I found and completed the Stunning DIY Nightstands Makeover with Benjamin Moore White Dove paint.
Shop the photo: Marble fluted edge tray (similar) | For the Love of White: The White and Neutral Home book | Gilles & Bossier book (goes in and out of stock) | Knot decor (similar looking) | Table lamp (similar) | Tall basket with lid (similar) | Cashmere plaid throw blanket (similar) | Ball cabinet knob, standard size unlacquered brass
Be sure to also check out the post all about Stylish Nightstand Decorating Ideas the Pros Use to get the look for yourself! Also, I made the DIY Intaglio Art which you can make yourself as well!
Overviews of Current Favorite Books
Now that you know where to get coffee table books and how to style around your home with books, I wanted to share detailed descriptions for some of my current favorite coffee table books that I have found over the years.
If you haven't heard of Monika Hibbs and her lovely home goods store, Acres Market & Interiors (formerly Monika Hibbs Home), go now and follow the account on Instagram.
Straddling the line between traditional to transitional design, combined with a little bit of coastal aesthetic, Monika Hibbs curates beautiful home decor and interiors. She also penned one of my all-time favorite books, Gather at Home. It is gorgeous to look at, but also fun to read. The book is chock-full of a mix of easy DIY craft projects, family recipes, and memory-making entertaining ideas.
I love its approachability, inspirational (and aspirational) ideas for everything from recipes to DIY projects, and it's just so pretty!
Home at Last: Enduring Design for the New American Home
Gil Schafer III is known as one of the preeminent architects of today. In his third book, Home at Last: Enduring Design for the New American Home, Schafer takes us back to a time when homes were built with longevity in mind. Homes built following classical principles of architecture updated for how we live today fill the pages of this must-have tome. Home at Last is easily one of my favorite books at the moment.
The Beauty of Home: Redefining Traditional Interiors
If you love traditional to transitional home design, Marie Flanigan's The Beauty of Home book is for you. I normally remove the dust jacket from books I style with, but this one is too pretty! Though, you can remove it to reveal the neutral cover underneath.
I usually have this book placed on the shelf of my nightstand with a tiny marble tray (similar) on top that holds a silk hair binder for sleeping. Below you will see it on a our built-in bookshelf (top book), styled with a pretty brass laurel wreath on top.
Architectural Digest at 100: A Century of Style
Neutral books are easier to decorate with, and the AD at 100: A Century of Style book is the pinnacle of neutral coffee table books. When it was released, it seemed like it was everywhere. Interior designers styled every home with this book and they still do, for good reason. At over 450 pages, it is very substantial in size. They also recently released the AD at 100 Collector's Edition with gilded edges and gold foil on the cover.
You can't go wrong with this particular book. I have ours styled on an entry console table with rattan links on top. I love how the natural color and texture from rattan looks against the lightly textured cream linen book cover.
Elements of Timeless Style: Creating a Forever Home
Known for classic New England interiors with a twist, Erin Gates' Elements of Timeless Style book has a pretty white greek key design on the spine that sets it apart. Her redesigned living room, featured in the book, went viral after she painted it Wales Gray by the eponymous paint house Benjamin Moore.
Interior design professionals and enthusiasts alike were smitten with Studio McGee over the last several years that it was no surprise when Shea McGee's first book, The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home, became an instant best seller. From the Target x Studio McGee collaboration that broke records to the couple's Dream Home Makeover show on Netflix, you cannot escape the impact the design house has had across the industry (and world) today.
Her book cover is cream with a nearly imperceptible green undertone that reminds me of Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore. That may have been her intention, because the walls in her own home are painted Swiss Coffee at 75% strength.
Alexa Hampton's Decorating in Detail book is one of my favorite books to style without the dust jacket. A cover in the most beautiful blue-green-grey color, the book showcases Hampton's style as notably lived-in chic. Anyone who loves interior design will enjoy this book.
Kate Marker is known as much for her online home furnishings store as she is for her interiors. In The Love of Home: Interiors for Beauty, Balance, and Belonging, she focuses on transitional spaces with neutral color palettes that soothe the soul. She even features her own home renovation, which garnered quite the attention when it was revealed.
You have probably seen that many lifestyle and interior design influencers have this stunning neutral book, Live Beautiful by Athena Calderone.
A soft, creamy ecru color with black contrasting book title in a modern typeface on the spine, Calderone's Live Beautiful book holds up well across practically any design style. Because it is neutral, it looks great in transitional and traditional interiors, but also plays well with contemporary as well as country style interiors.
Interior designer extraordinaire Amber Lewis has made a name for herself as one of the preeminent design house, influencer, home decor collaborators of our time. Much like her designs, her book, Made for Living: Collected Interiors for All Sorts of Style, should be considered a piece of home decor on its own.
Moody rooms that evoke a feeling of lived-in comfort, Lewis's work is scroll-stopping. You will love flipping through the pages filled with her wanderous interiors, while getting a few interior design and decorating tips for your own home, no doubt.
The cover is a mid-tone grey color, suitable for livening up a dark corner. Currently, my copy is set in a tray atop our linen tufted ottoman in our living room. I like to place decorative objects on top of books, like a gorgeous alabaster box with lid (similar) I found at HomeGoods.
I can honestly say I purchased John Derian's Picture Book due to its sheer size, neutral dust cover, and overwhelming popularity. Design house after design house has posted countless pictures styling with this book. To be fair, in this occupation of mine, I need weighty books, and this one does not disappoint. At more than 350 pages, and over 14 inches tall, this is one of the largest coffee table books in my collection. Seeing as how it is a picture book, I actually use it as a coffee table book, turning it open to a page that is sure to start a conversation.
At the time of writing this, I just finished reading Ralph Lauren Way of Living: Home, Design, Inspiration. Let me say, this book was not what I was expecting. At the same time, I am not sure exactly what I was expecting. I enjoyed reading this book and I do like it a lot, especially with the dust jacket on. In the end, it is a quintessential coffee table book. For fashion house lovers looking for nostalgia that has synonymized Ralph Lauren with Americana preppy style, this book is definitely for you.
One of the most luxurious books published in recent history, encased in a cotton duck canvas slipcase and bound in soft peachy-pink herringbone wool fabric - yes, actual wool fabric - from Uniacke's own fabric line, Rose Uniacke at Home Limited Collector's Edition book is the most beautiful book in my collection. By far, it is the most luxurious book in my collection.
It is unusual in that it is printed in gatefolds with many blank pages, which, after reading Uniack's introduction, you will understand why. This book is intended to be a piece of art in and of itself.
You may enjoy a short story about how this stunning book came to be in my possession. (Wow, it feels like I am starting the story of a long lost treasure discovered by yours truly! I mean, I'm not wrong😏)
Originally a limited edition print run, I thought this was a book I would never have the great opportunity to own. Own it? Forget ever even seeing it in person. Then, in one of my "Let's see what treasures are to be found on T.J.Maxx online" moods, there it was like a beacon to light the darkest shadows of the… too dramatic? With excited trepidation and disbelief, I clicked on the item listing, confirmed the details were what I thought it was, immediately added it to my cart, and bought it before others discovered its existence. There are very few things I have ever purchased that quickly before. No, I do not go to concerts, plays, or sporting events, so you will not find me up at 1am trying to snag the best tickets. Instead, as my husband likes to say, I like to find the unobtanium of home decor items. A limited edition 100 year anniversary KitchenAid stand mixer in Misty Blue I wrote about. A discontinued white serving board and plank that took me quite some time to source, but look oh so lovely in our kitchen. A book that went out of print and re-released as a limited collector's edition. Sometimes, to my great delight, I somehow make the unobtainium obtainable. You can try to get your own copy on the Rose Uniacke website, if T.J.Maxx online is sold out.
The Best Coffee Table Books on Interiors and Design
Whether you like books about art, fashion, cars, travel, interiors, or some other captivating topic, buy what you love! I am very much into books about home interiors, design, and architecture, which is the subject matter of most of the books that follow. The text below each image links to the book, so you can easily shop the list!
Frequently Asked Questions
The type of books you style your coffee table or ottoman with doesn't really matter. Scale does though. Don't get overly large books for a small table or vice versa. Small books on a large coffee table will look out of proportion, while overly large books may take up too much space on a coffee table that you intend to use.
If you want guests to flip through the decorative books, make sure you provide books that are interesting to look at. Usually, image-forward books are best.
Coffee table books do not have to match. In fact, variation adds a dimension and interest to interiors. That said, you can use matching books, if you want to.
There is no rule as to how many books should be on a coffee table. What does matter is size, scale and space.
For instance, a 30" small, round coffee table would not look balanced with three stacks of books. One book in a tray, decorated with a small object on top and a taller faux greenery works better for the size, scale and space.
A good way to determine if you have too many books on a coffee table is to stand back to look at the space as a whole. Does the room look cluttered? Another tip is to walk away until the next day. Looking at the space with somewhat fresh eyes, how does it look to you now? Keep playing with it. Creating is the fun part!
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