5 coffee table books to read now

India Women

German photographer Nicolaus Schmidt turns his lens on working women in rural areas and urban slums of India, his striking images capturing their existence in a liminal space in between tradition and modernity. Investigative reporter Priyanka Dubey provides details about the women’s everyday lives, and their challenges with issues relating to work, religion, sexism, and more. Kerber, Rs 4,210.

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Selfish

If photos of Kim Kardashian have the power to break the internet, imagine what they’ll do to your coffee table. This collection represents Kim’s effort to reclaim her identity as a woman famous only for her image: here, she makes sure it’s her own production.  Kardashian has been documenting herself since the 1980s, two decades before the practice became everyone’s most-hated buzzword. We’ve seen a lot of Kardashian – literally and figuratively – but we always want to peer closer, and Selfish lets us do just that. Rizzoli, Rs 1052.

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The Wes Anderson Collection

Film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz and illustrator Max Dalton present a world as intricately crafted and subversively witty as a Wes Anderson film itself. The book is a collection of interviews with Anderson, offering a comprehensive view of his work and tastes. The filmmaker’s immaculate style, wide-ranging influences (from Satyajit Ray to Ernst Lubitsch) and many muses – Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray – are all explored in this macaron-coloured volume. Henry Abrams, Rs 2,567.

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From Darkness Into Light: Perspectives On Film Preservation & Restoration

The recently established Film Heritage Foundation of India, dedicated to preserving our cinematic heritage, has published a gorgeously designed book on Indian cinema. The book lists the sixty most important endangered films in India, including well-known ones such as Awara (1951) and Do Bigha Zamin (1953). It also presents sumptuous rare photographs from the early Indian film era and essays by expert curators, archivists, and one Martin Scorsese. Film Heritage Foundation; available at contact@filmheritagefoundation.co.in.

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William Helburn: Seventh And Madison: Mid-Century Fashion And Advertising Photography

Suffering from Mad Men withdrawal? You’ll find the clean modernist décor, pastel circle skirts and psychedelic minis, and manufactured-wholesome Americana that the show was inspired by in this collection. William Helburn was one of the preeminent advertising photographers of the postwar era, known for pushing the boundaries of commercial art. The book includes an iconic Coca-Cola ad – made for McCann Erickson – from 1956. Don Draper would approve. Thames & Hudson, Rs 2,922.

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