Forget opera houses, art galleries and concert halls — culture starts with your coffee table. More precisely, with your coffee table books; extravagantly-bound, large-scale volumes used to inform visitors — without doubt or uncertainty — that you’re as smart, sophisticated and well-informed as they think you are.

The things are like hardback exhibitions, portable art shows — or endlessly browsable catalogues of your favourite cars, photographs or destinations.

And which book you choose says a lot about you. Too intellectual or avant-garde, and you’ll be tripped up when somebody asks why the spine has never been cracked. Too vapid and vacuous, and it’ll have the opposite of your desired, charismatic effect. Thankfully, we’ve rounded up 10 of the finest titles that sit assuredly (and heavily) in that accomplished coffee table sweet spot. Now it’s just down to you to pick one…

A good place to start. Or should that be great? This slightly slimmer, bantamweight edition of Muhammad Ali’s visual history is a perfect, manageable option for sports enthusiasts. With expert essays, compelling interviews, thousands of images, and two gatefold sequences, it’ll float like a butterfly, sting like a bee and keep you entertained for hours.

From the coffee table to the garage. Beautiful Machines is a treat for any petrolheads out there — looking to start their engines with 320 pages of automotive excitement. From the legendary Porsche 917 (Steve McQueen’s favourite) to the Ferrari Daytona and slick Aston Martin DB5, it includes fascinating stories behind (and incredible images of) quintessential sports cars. Buckle up.

What better book for your coffee table? Written by a former World Barista Champion and brimming with freshly-roasted stories and stats about coffee, this alternative atlas is the perfect deep dive into everyone’s favourite caffeinated cupful. Prepare to discover where coffee comes from and how it is harvested — before getting up close and powerful with the rich roasting process.

The original James Bond Archives were a cracking read — shaken and stirred together with photos, designs, storyboards and production materials from over half a century of cinema’s most successful franchise. This edition one-ups the original, with a wealth of 1,007 images and an oral history featuring 150 members of cast and crew talking up the as-yet-unreleased No Time To Die.

If you’ve already got a feature wall shelving and showing off your record collection at home, why not complement it with a coffee table book? This extraordinary compendium compiles 1,000 of the most iconic record sleeves from the 1960s to 1990s. Visually striking, endlessly nostalgic and utterly expressive of their respective periods, the millennium of artworks are accompanied by the stories and secrets of how they came to be.

Savile Row; the beating, bespoke heart of London’s tailoring scene. If you’ve got a couple of made-to-measure suits hanging upstairs in your wardrobe then this coffee table book was also made-for-you. Told through eight chronological themes, this beautifully illustrated celebration brings together Savile Row’s highlights and low-lifes, the dramas and private tales, the fabrics and the cuts, the history and future.

If you’re looking to zhuzh up your games room, there are few books better than this one. Designed to look like a deck of cards, it’ll deck out your coffee table with some top-drawer gambling know-how. Inside its innovatively designed pages, Poker includes everything you ever wanted to know about the most popular table sport in the world, from its history and legendary players, to winners’ psychologies, casino rules and infamous cheats.

Don’t get us wrong; Los Angeles can put on a show with the Oscars. But we’ve always had a softer spot for our homegrown British BAFTAs. Luckily, as does Charles Finch, who has hosted a famous pre-BAFTA party every year since 1999. It’s a highly anticipated star-studded bash — and this glitzy, glamorous coffee table books captures the annual event in singularly cinematic style.

Of course, the United States is pretty good at telling stories of its own — and this coffee table book lets perhaps the world’s most exciting city speak for itself. An unparalleled visual history of the Big Apple, this books pages will guide you through the most important periods of the great city and into all its boroughs, from Manhattan and Brooklyn to the Bronx and Queens to Staten Island.

And, finally, to St. Moritz. Perhaps the coolest (both literally and figuratively) holidaying spot of the jet set, the stories and decadence of this slick Swiss resort town could fill tens of books. But author Dora Lardelli has done a sparkling job of condensing the opulence and outrage into a single volume; packed with gorgeous, frosty photographs, tales from the slope-side and the daring-do antics of playboys from Gunter Sachs to Gianni Agnelli.

Looking for more hardbacks for your home? With these titles in your Zoom background, you’ll look like an intellectual…

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