# Worst Coffee Table Book? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 2, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446 "2001-04-02T04:22:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/1 "2001-04-02T04:22:35Z")
So there I was, browsing the discount section of B&N, and I found this coffee table book on archaeology. I leafed through it to find that it was full of color photos of, you know… dead people. Not just bones or anything, but freeze-dried Eskimo babies whose eyes had rotted out, squishy bog people, and, worst of all, some Arctic explorers from the 1700’s who died and were tossed off their ship into the frigid (but quite shallow) waters. And now, a quarter-millennium later, we get to see their perfectly preserved, ice-blue eyes peering up at us from beneath the fresh, clear water. Shudder… Does anyone have a worse coffee table book story? -Ben ---
**Author:** ![Sangria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@Sangria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangria)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/2 "2001-04-02T08:18:01Z")
I got a book of Teddy Bears at a table marked “overstock”. Well, it was worse than overstock, more like misprint. The binder had mixed sections of two different printings, and only the first part was in Spanish. The rest was in French, which I can’t read. Even that wouldn’t have been bad, but I was a present for a little cousin, and I didn’t catch the mistake until she asked me to read some things to her. ---
**Author:** ![Philosophocles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Philosophocles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philosophocles)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/3 "2001-04-02T08:29:31Z")
The worst coffee table book is a coffee table book about coffee tables, which can also be made into a miniature coffee table. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/4 "2001-04-02T14:07:04Z")
It can be summed up in 2 words: Madonna - Sex ---
**Author:** ![Albert\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/5 "2001-04-02T16:09:55Z")
Proust, _A La Recherce du Temps Perdu_, Big Print Illustrated version. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/6 "2001-04-02T17:02:35Z")
One of my ex-roommates and I had a running gag going where we’d rack our brains thinking of the most embarassing books we could find on our coffee table for guests to read. Just off the top of my head, the following books cropped up: Ashida Kim’s _Secrets of the Ninja_ (my favorite) _The Boy Scout’s Handbook_ _The Crow_ (both of us really, really hate Goths). ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/7 "2001-04-02T17:24:57Z")
One of my ex-roommates and I had a running gag going where we’d rack our brains thinking of the most embarassing books we could find on our coffee table for guests to read. Just off the top of my head, the following books cropped up: Ashida Kim’s _Secrets of the Ninja_ (my favorite) _The Boy Scout’s Handbook_ _The Crow_ (both of us really, really hate Goths). ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2001, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/8 "2001-04-02T17:32:16Z")
Sorry about that, folks. Hit the mid-day massive dope lag phenonmenon. Would you believe that a full 40 minutes separated my typing the post and the wonder of spam you now see before you? Yikes. (Yikes here, too. I deleted the duplicate post before I noticed this post made reference to it. **slortar** isn’t hallucinating; my snauf. _sigh_ Veb) [Edited by TVeblen on 04-02-2001 at 11:18 PM] ---
**Author:** ![ModernRonin2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@ModernRonin2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ModernRonin2)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/9 "2001-04-03T00:47:20Z")
H.R. Geiger’s “Necronomicon 2”. This is the guy who did Alien, and Alien is far from the most disturbing thing he’s ever done - far. Necronomicon 2 is a big book, about 2’x1’, and is full of vivid, detailed pictures of disturbing, rottingly green bio-humanoids, doing whatever Geiger’s twisted unconscious could dream up. Try [http://www.giger.com](http://www.giger.com) for a taste. This is the kind of book that causes less jaded types to question your sanity when they find it on your book shelf, much less on your coffee table. Unfortunatly, goths might like it… ;] -Ben ---
**Author:** ![PolarField](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@PolarField](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PolarField)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/10 "2001-04-03T01:21:49Z")
I think the worst coffee table book is the one I have sitting on my coffee table: Entering the stream: A guide to the Buddha and his teachings It’s well over 500 small-print pages w/ dog-eared corners well throughout it. Friends look at it long and hard – pause, then look at me long and hard. Moments pass in silence. Then they notice the classics like Franz Kafka, George Orwell, and the filled journals I have laying around haphazardly… “What kind of sick and twisted secret life do you live Mike?!” ---
**Author:** ![Tyklfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3e96dc/32.png) [@Tyklfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyklfe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/11 "2001-04-03T01:50:01Z")
AOL and you: a guide to self-improvement. If I had this sitting on my coffee table I would have to shoot myself. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-coffee-table-book/60446/12 "2001-04-03T02:00:47Z")
Worst or best, depending on who’s sitting in your living room: _Cacas: The Encyclopedia of Poo_ by Oliviero Toscani. Got this from **Billdo** for Christmas.