A book with your cup of coffee

Posted Sep 19, 2006 by Kevin Walker

Updated Sep 19, 2006 at 02:12 PM

Nothing literary today, gentle reader. I’m actually trying to give you a leg up on the shopping season. A slew of new coffee table books are on the market, and they make that perfect gift for someone you know but maybe you don’t know all that well, if you know what I mean. I’m sure you do.

First up is “Secrets of a Style Diva” by Susie Coelho, who hosted two shows on the Home and Garden Television cable channel designed to allow everyone to release their inner diva, should they wish to do so. I do not. But perhaps you know someone who does.

In “Work: The World In Photographs,” National Geographic photographers show people from around the world making a living, from dancers in Cambodia to transport truck drivers in Saudi Arabia. It’s cooler than it sounds.

In “Treasures of the Spanish Main,” author and photographer John Christopher Fine offers up photos and information about the wealth of treasure found around underwater. Seeing these piles of jewels and gold will make you wish you had gone into another line of work, like deep sea salvage.

Finally, Eric Hammel has tapped the U.S. Marine Corps photo archives to find 500 rare photos from World War II and place them in a new book, “Iwo Jima.” The one on the back of the book is poignant all by itself: a crowd of Marines on a transport boat, heading across the water, Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima - and almost certain death - looming in the distance.