2oceans Vibe

Coffee-table books are strange things – generally pretty, expensive, and without much depth. You never really read one from cover to cover unless your host is being especially inhospitable. They are the waiting-room magazines for the well decked out house, living-room accessories, a lounges’ jewellery. Books whose colour schemes are sometimes more important than their content. Big, colourful pictures, little text, and the ability for you to open one anywhere and let your eyes drift lazily over the page letting the brain’s cogs lie peacefully still.

Cape Town: Up Close & Personal is exactly that. It’s an up to date photographic “journey” through Cape Town. The new Cape Town Stadium is featured, as well as The Power and The Glory (this means it is conceivable for an old hipster to one day sit a grand-kid on their knee, open this book, and say, “sonny jim, this is where you come from). As landscapes of cities develop and change, alongside develops the need for new, big and bright books with glossy photographs that document these changes.

And that’s essentially what this book is: photographs of Cape Town from the air and from the ground, peppered with portraits of Capetonians going about their business. Alongside the images are quotes from various well known figures such as Helen Zille, Simon Atwell, Sir Antony Sher, David Kramer, and Nelson Mandela – answering the question: Why do you love Cape Town?

And the photos? Well I am no photographic expert, but these are clear, precise and bright, showing Cape Town in all its splendour without really offering any new angles. It comes across as a large, hard-cover press pack for the city, rather than an exploration. The book offers Cape Town as is (mostly the pretty parts) without insight. This for me was at odds with the title. As personal as this book may have been for the author, I found it lacking personality for the reader. The aerial shots – though beautiful – seem to distance the viewer from the city, or at least, they skim over anything unpleasant.  As I said, a press pack: a glossy Cape Town, a familiar Cape Town, but not a personal, in-depth one.

Who would want this book? It appears to me the perfect book for Capetonians living far away from home. They will page through and go, “oh ya, check this, I used to live there.” “There’s my house.” ‘I use to go running right there.” It’s perfect for an expat’s coffee-table; they can say to their dinner guests, “While I go and baste the chicken, take a look at that book, it’s where I used to live.” And then wonder why they are basting a chicken in a small London flat instead of living in Cape Town.

Should you get this book? It is easy to work out.

Do you have a coffee table where big picture books reside?

Do you want a non-offensive book filled with bright big pictures of a pretty and modern Cape Town?

If you answer yes to both those questions, then my friends, we have found the perfect book for you.