Coffee Table Book: Lotsa Photos, Li'l Prose

Having just attended the launching of the third coffee table book that I was privileged to write, I think my smiles are a little bigger and my steps, jauntier.

Compared to writing heavy prose, there is an almost exclusive kind of high in doing a hardcover book meant to sit on a coffee table. Such a book can inspire conversations or entertain guests before boredom sets in.    

For anyone who loves working with images and creating words to go with them, writing is like a leisurely stroll in a meadow of flowers. Wide open spaces and a panorama of colors define the landscape that speaks volumes. Words should be sparse and carefully picked, or they could ruin the vista. 

What charms me most about writing a coffee table book is, you don't work in isolation.  You interact closely with a photographer and an art director, who see things through eyes different from yours, and of course the person around whom the story revolves.  The process can be repetitive and long, but never ho-hum.       

Every meeting is like solving a crossword puzzle. There are clues from horizontal and vertical visuals and cryptic thoughts that need just the exact words to fit the blank spaces.

“Build on Dreams” is both a story of courage and a visual feast. It speaks of  how the abstract becomes concrete—from dreams to reality.   

It will never hit the bookstores because it is not for sale.  But the launching was done in a style grander than anything my books ever had.  Mainly because it coincided with a celebration of other milestones.

This post, then, is not a pitch for you to take a peek at the leaves of the book.  It is a pitch for you to understand that to a writer, grace comes not only through words, but also through pictures that inspire words.      

(Trivia: David R. Brower, a famous environmentalist and founder of many environmental organizations, is often credited with inventing the 'modern coffee table book' in the 30s. He  created the genre of 'exhibit format' books highlighting outdoor photography with message on conservation.)