New coffee-table books provide more than just pretty pictures

We’re not too entirely fond of what might be termed “coffee table books” here at Rock Star Journalist – mainly because our coffee table is covered with back issues of Smithsonian and the wife’s textbooks. We also just prefer books with text. We’re readers, and outgrew picture books sometime around kindergarten.

However, there are some big ol’ art books that do a fine job of using the large format to display gorgeous artwork alongside insightful text, and in those rare instances, it’s our duty to bring them to your attention. We’re fortunate enough to have had two such books land on our desk this past week.
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Mark Batty Publisher’s coffee table books for hipsters

book-cover-toy-instrumentsMark Batty Publisher specializes in books that are best described as a cross between a bathroom book and a coffee table book. They have that “flip through them at your leisure” quality crossed with “set them out for your friends to see” appeal. The two books that recently showed up in the mail here at the Nuthouse – Eric Schneider‘s Toy Instruments: Design, Nostalgia, Music and Celebrity Vinyl, by Tom Hamling – are exactly the sort of collections any self-respecting music fan would want.

The graphic design is stellar, especially the covers. In the case of Toy Instruments, the book looks like a beaten toy package you might find in the back corner of a Salvation Army, while Celebrity Vinyl has the appearance of an old, bargain bin LP (especially with the dog-eared corners my copy acquired in the mail).
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