Art books get a summer makeover

At holiday time last year, Kim Rollins reviewed a slate of new coffeetable books for us. Without exception, the books were huge (she called them "flat, square, and heavy as paving stones"). These are the kind of books most of us think of when we think of coffeetable books — books almost too heavy to be read slouching comfortably in bed or on the couch.

But summer's a lighter season, and summer's coffeetable books a different breed. Sure, some of the books reviewed here are large and elaborate, but others are small and easy to handle, books you wouldn't shy away from reading in bed. Some topics are serious, but many fit the summer season with goofier, light-hearted topics, including Tucker Shaw's goofy chronicle of all the food he ate in one year, and Mike Nelson of "Mystery Science Theater" fame and his humorous reviews of über-cute art.

Mouthing off
I'm a sucker for food Weblogs, both those that offer recipes and food commentary as well as those that simply show photos of the proprietor's meals. Tucker Shaw's "Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth" (Chronicle, $15, to be published in July) is like one of those blogs, but one you can carry around with you and read comfortably in the tub.

There are doubtless many people who can't possibly imagine caring about what a stranger ate every single day for a year. I find it fascinating in a voyeuristic and weird way. Shaw might eat one meal at Emeril's restaurant, then for another, rip open a bag of ketchup-flavored potato chips. He consumed a corn-shaped lollipop at the Mitchell, S.D. Corn Palace and lots and lots of oatmeal at home. The photos are sometimes straightforward, sometimes sly: In one, a deep-fried Mars bar sits atop two issues of Cooks Illustrated magazine — would magazine editor Christopher Kimball approve of this meal?

It's mind-boggling to think of the chore it must have become for Shaw to drag out his Elph camera every single time he planned to put something in his mouth. But in a cutely hand-written introduction, he swears that's exactly what he did. The book could have used a little more text — after the introduction, there's only the simplest of food descriptions accompanying the photos. Readers don't know what foods Shaw loved or hated or why he chose them when he did. It's a book to flip through for fun, not one you'd read page by page. Many will dismiss the book as self-indulgent and ridiculous. Still, you're either quirky enough to love the concept or not, and I loved it.

Oh, for cute
The brains behind "Mystery Science Theater 3000" aren't making new episodes these days, but they're still out there skewering American culture. Head writer Michael J. Nelson has done humorous commentaries on several cult movies ("Reefer Madness" among them) and now, in cooperation with the Charles S. Anderson Design Company, he's written the text for "Happy Kitty Bunny Pony: A Saccharine Mouthful of Super Cute" (Abrams, $15).

Maybe the best advice I can give you about this book is to stay away from sugar for about a week before you pick it up. The photos and illustrations contained within have come straight from some special corner of hell, or maybe Japan, where only the most sicky-sweet, coma-inducing images reside. Endless adorable kittens play with unlimited balls of yarn. Adorable lambies bat eyelashes that Tammy Faye would kill for. Unicorns prance, duckies dance, it's all one over-the-top baby nursery of the damned.

If you're a rabid MST3K fan, you'd read a cereal box if Mike Nelson was writing it (maybe that's his next plan: Frosted Flakes 3000). His commentary includes such gems as "A single cat can be responsible for the deaths of more than 100 birds and small animals every year. But not this cat. His fused back end and peglike front leg make it difficult to move stealthily." But Nelson has to share center stage here with the images, which will alternately delight and horrify the artists in your life.

Getting into training
Rail travel sees few bright patches these days, which makes Keith Lovegrove’s “Railroad: Identity, Design and Culture” (Rizzoli, $30) as sad as it is delightful.

The London-based Lovegrove clearly has a Brit’s sensibility about life on the rails. He details shining locomotives, sleek designs (right down to approved corporate typefaces) and luxurious accoutrements of the world’s railroads, past and present, with a tone that’s appreciative, if not reverent. (He even avoids any major digs at British Rail, itself a major feat.)

Chock-full of photos that strike a keen balance between insight and beauty, this latest effort mirrors Lovegrove’s previous book on the airline industry.  The uniforms aren’t quite as natty this time around, though the seats appear more comfy and the food looks a lot better: The bento box served on the train to Kyushu is a minor work of art.

As Lovegrove recounts for us nearly three centuries of hard-fought battles to make trains faster, sleeker and more glamorous, you can’t but help be a bit dismayed by the state of the modern railroad, at least in the United States. One look at the gleaming lounge on Union Pacific’s 1938 art-deco City of Los Angeles, followed by a spread of a worn-out Amtrak Superliner, and you conclude that in this particular realm, Americans have given up the fight.

No question that “Railroad” is a coffee-table effort, but as someone who’s kept more than his share of railroad tomes in his living room, I’m comfortable saying that Lovegrove stretches the genre as far as it will go. He is determined to be substantive, and his penchant for the obscure (a century-long comparison of Canadian Pacific logos; an ill-fated German rail zeppelin) makes you stop flipping pages and start paying attention.    —Jon Bonné

MORE FROM BOOKS

Grisham: Printed books are endangered species

Grisham: Printed books are endangered species Palin book tour avoids Democratic strongholds Poet Lord Byron’s letters sell for $455,000 Seriously! Beer sparked Norm’s ‘Cheers’ career Tycoon tales and Darwin get award nominations ‘Wild Things’ author isn’t wild about Hollywood   Add Books headlines to your news reader: