There is nothing OT about this subject :-)

Currently the books I have artfully arranged on the coffee table (actually a small side table - the coffee table is covered with a crochet project I'm working on) are The World Encyclopedia of Cheese, Modern French Culinary Art and a stack of translated books about cakes and cake decorating. I have been watching reruns of The Great British Bake-Off on a Danish TV channel I get through my cable provider, and every time I finish watching an episode I get the longing to bake, pull out my baking books and start looking for recipes.

At other times you might find photography books, art books (fantasy art rather than fine art), illustrated books about history, crafts, travel or literature, or picture encyclopaedias of different kinds.

My favourites are a couple of art books by American artist Maryjo Koch that I bought in Florida many years ago and pull out every now and then, and At Home With Books, a gorgeous book about private libraries of people ranging from regular book-lovers to rock stars.

On the coffee table in the den are Villages of England, The Greek Isles, and Oahu: Images of the Gathering Place.

In the living room are London Sketchbook, At Home with Books, and London, A City Revealed.

You would conclude that I like to travel and to read, and you would be right. I look through them from time to time and occasionally visitors do, too.

Otherwise, there are books in every room in the house (except the bathrooms; it gives me the heebie jeebies to see books displayed in damp areas as they sometimes are in magazine pictures), including multiple cookbooks--many unused--in the kitchen. The true exposition of my psyche, though, would have to be the unruly mess of the bookcase beside my chaise longue in the bedroom where I do the most of my reading.

I don't have a coffee table but I do have a table at the side of my armchair. This is covered with remote controls, newspapers and brochures and a small space for a tea mug! The current book I am reading is under the chair.
You all have very elegant homes! Mine has the cluttered look!

I used to have some nice travel books, many magazines, and a picture album from our Panama Canal cruise on the coffee table. Then, I think my (very well-behaved til then) dog started having panic attacks when she was left for longish periods. I no longer put any reading material of value on my coffee table. The picture album cover was made of beautiful rice paper. It got eaten, not the photos luckily.

{{gwi:208576}}

Oh dear Kathy, not good at all! Sorry about the books, and I hope your dog recovers his equilibrium.

Tom's current selections:
A photobook from Tom's most recent bicycle tour
A photo history of the bicycle
A book of photos from a museum exhibit of early automobiles

Rosefolly's current selections:
An illustrated history of roses
A book on National Trust gardens
A short stack of recent knitting magazines

Poor dog! At least she hasn't attacked the upholstery apparently.
I came home from work to find one of the dogs had chewed the footstool part of a leather recliner chair.
My daughter's dog took her much used dictionary off the coffee table and ate that when my D had to go away for a couple of days. Her partner never noticed until it was too late!
They seem to latch onto things we like the most...

Our coffee table, which is never used for holding coffee cups, has the usual clutter of . .. Brilliant Bread a Christmas present to John from US cousin. Wm Stearn's Botanical Latin a birthday present from me to him, a couple of photoshop mags, the TV remote, various unidentifiable lengths of cable and a torch in case the electricity fails again.
A photo could never do it justice.
We don't own any of those big flashy coffee table books.

Vee, only ONE remote? I am stuck with four! TV, PVR, DVD/video player and the air conditioner one. I frequently try the wrong one in a dim light, then wonder why something doesn't work!
I have some lovely big coffee table books that I rescued from a purge in a library but they sit on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. I must look at more than the cat and dog reference ones sometime.
I do have Peter Russell-Clarke's "Egg Cook Book" and it has a personal greeting to me with his signature and a self- portrait cartoon on the inside front page.
If I possessed a coffee table, that would be on it for bragging purposes!

I used to have some oversized coffee table books (including At Home with Books ... I sense a trend here) and photo albums on display, but today my coffee table holds a library book I probably won't finish, Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane that I'd like to start, some magazines and a pile of New York Times Book Reviews that I need to catch up on. Also one of the DH's many remotes for the TV, stereo, etc.,( I have no idea which is which) and his latest CD/DVD purchase.

I had a dog once that ate 2 of my books. I figured he liked the taste of the glue in the spine.

I use an antique chest for a coffee table now. The books thereon reflect my taste for history, gardening, art, architecture, and cities of Europe. I keep a stack of informative books about my new adopted city of Charleston SC, and its history, also.

I have a small table near the couch and I have books like: Leonard and the Last Supper, Steve Jobs, Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican, The Louvre, Art in Venice, Emily Carr. Mostly Art books. Can you tell I am an Artist and that I like to travel.

I would like to make it clear that the reason I don't have a coffee table is because of lack of space! I have gone for a nest of tables in my small sitting area. I used to have a lovely glass topped one which was given to me when I lived in the UK but I had to leave it behind when I moved back to Australia. I used it for pot plants and put it where it would catch the sun,,,so still no books on it!
Woodnymph, you could be right about the glue. The worst dog damage I had was when one of my deerhounds decided to tear open a couch to make a nest of the filling to give birth!

We have a coffee table, but most of the time it's clear on top. (Not a big fan of clutter, I'm afraid.) It does have one shelf underneath that top and on there are a couple of gardening books (about TX gardening) and a local gardening manual from the Master Gardeners group here.

Not that I actually read and learn from these books. They have nice pictures. :-)

Oh, and endless amounts of a wide variety of remote controls which look remarkably similar at times.

Interesting ......remotes that reproduce in the night !
Perhaps they surface from the same wrinkle in time where the other sock went :0)

Speaking of multiplying household objects (or disappearing, as the case may be), we have recently had two potato peelers vanish into thin air.

So - if anyone's seen them, let me know. We're on our third one for this year!

(Seriously - how do two potato peelers, one after the other, disappear from a house? It might be goblins,I fear.)

I had a peeler disappear and end up in my compost pile along with the peelings.

Not as bad as a well meaning guest who, when helping clear the table, tossed out one of my sterling silver spoons with the scrapings !
Luckily I discovered it quite by accident.

That's the reason I always count my flatware after people "help" me clear up. My daughter's baby spoon ended up in the disposal once when we had a small visitor. It's a little the worse for wear, but I did rescue it for sentimental value.

Could the peelers have been wrapped up and thrown out with the peelings? My GD lost a favourite knife that way, we deduced. Luckily I had the same knife so gave it to her as I don't use that one from my set.