10 coffee table books that make great gifts

Stuck for a present for that friend that's hard to shop for? Check out one of these gorgeous coffee table books.

8. 'Audrey: The 60s,' by David Wills

The "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Charade" movie star is celebrated through a collection of photographs which capture Hepburn during the 1960s, when her career and stye influence were at their peak. Full-page images are accompanied by quotes from Hepburn or those speaking about her, as with a photo of Hepburn from the movie "How to Steal a Million." "At the bar at the Ritz, with the veil," a quote from Tim Gunn reads, discussing a moment in the film in which Hepburn wears a thin veil over her forehead and eyes. "That's one of the great moments in fashion in the movies."

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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