Coffee table and beauty books for the beauty fanatic and bibliophile in your life
By Carla Snuggs

Books make exceptional holiday gifts - a perfectly selected book shows such care and thoughtfulness. My favorite types of books to receive are coffee table books and beauty books – they can turn an ordinary space into something interesting and beautiful and I just love thumbing through them, getting inspiration from every page.  If you’re looking for the perfect book for someone who loves beautiful things, here are a few of Posh Beauty Blog’s faves!

Pantone on Fashion: A Century of Color in Design ($35, October 2014). Follow global color authority Pantone on this vivid journey through the rich history of color in fashion. Favorite hues and their appearances across the decades are profiled in informative text and copiously illustrated by runway photos and archival images. Track Bright Marigold from its heyday in the 1940s as Hermès’ identifying hue to its show-stopping appearance in Carolina Herrera’s Spring/Summer 2013 collection, and trace Cyber Yellow from 1960s mod style to Anna Sui’s 1990s punk-inspired looks. Complete with a survey of the industry-defining Pantone Color of the Year, Pantone on Fashion is the ultimate guide to the timeless shades the fashion world loves to love.

Make Up: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success — Online and Off  ($23, October 2014) From creating a gorgeous smoky eye to understanding contouring to developing an online persona, Michelle has advice to help you transform every facet of your life. Make Up is packed with Michelle’s trademark beauty and style tutorials,  stories and pictures from her own life, and advice on the topics she is asked about most.

Miles of MAC by James Gager & Miles Aldridge ($45) is the perfect coffee table book for the MAC fanatic! A 256 hardcover book of 100 looks, from MAC Cosmetics, featuring some of the most inspiring images from the brand's history.

Skinnygirl Cocktails: 100 Fun & Flirty Guilt-Free Recipes by Bethenny Frankel. Bethenny Frankel is the four-time bestselling author of Skinnydipping, A Place of Yes, Naturally Thin, and The Skinnygirl Dish.  Her newest book, SKINNYGIRL COCKTAILS: 100 Fun & Flirty Guilt-Free Recipes (Touchstone Paperback; October 28, 2014; $15.00) is full of amazingly delicious guilt-free 150-calorie cocktails and recipes for any fun-filled party. Bethenny offers one hundred of her favorite cocktails and party-foods for any occasion, from theme parties to romantic evenings to “girls only” nights.  SKINNYGIRL COCKTAILS has everything you need to throw a fabulous party including appetizer ideas, party planning tips and the essentials for your home bar. 

Cooking Your Way to Gorgeous: Skin-Friendly Superfoods, Age-Reversing Recipes, and Fabulous Homemade Facials by Scott-Vincent Borba ($14.95, July, 2013). Scott-Vincent Borba is a pioneer of beauty innovation in the health and cosmetic markets. Named “the next Tom Ford for Beauty” by W magazine, he is the author of three best-sellers: Makeup for Dummies and Skintervention. His newest book is Cooking Your Way to Gorgeous has now become a top-seller. Borba reveals the most powerful anti-aging foods for glowing skin, serving up a wealth of delicious skin-friendly recipes plus DIY facials and scrubs from items you probably already have in your fridge or pantry. 

500 Eye Makeup Designs is a collection of gorgeous eye looks for every occasion! From everyday "work-looks" that never get boring, to fantasy-inspired eye shadow with glitter and rhinestones, this guide provides amazing looks for breaking out of the neutral eye shadow-black mascara rut. Filled with designs for every skill and patience level, you can play up your most important feature with looks from different eras, a perfect smokey eye, theatrical looks, and even wild nature-inspired looks! With 500 Eye Makeup Designs, you'll always have the stunning look.

The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson ($35, April 2014). As an MLIS graduate, this is one of my favorite books. What a gorgeous celebration of America's libraries! Over the last eighteen years photographer Robert Dawson has crisscrossed the United States documenting hundreds of public libraries, large and small, old and new, urban and rural, in poor communities and in wealthy ones. The Public Library presents a wide selection of Dawson’s photographs—from the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library to Allensworth, California’s one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves. Accompanying Dawson’s revealing photographs are a foreword by Bill Moyers, an afterword by Ann Patchett, and essays, letters, and poetry celebrating libraries by Anne Lamott, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, Philip Levine, E. B. White, Isaac Asimov, Dr. Seuss, Charles Simic, and others. 

Some press samples were provided by brands/PR for editorial consideration, product testing, photography and review.  

What are your favorite coffee table or beauty books? Leave your comments below!