Summer Book Releases for The Hobbyist 2026

Best Craft & Hobby Books: Summer New Releases 2026

Whether you're picking up a paintbrush, building furniture or grooming your garden, the best craft and hobby books launching this summer are designed to inspire your next great project. This genre celebrates hands-on creativity, artistic expression and health and lifestyle content guided by skilled experts, renowned makers and icons ranging from Jamie Oliver to Martha Stewart. To help you master your craft, our in-house editorial team actively tracks sales data, advance reviews and librarian recommendations to hand-pick the most appealing and inspiring how-to guides for The Hobbyist.

August New Release Books

The 25th Hour: How to Thrive (and Gain Ridiculous Amounts of Time) by Getting Out of Your Own Way

by Neal Schore

"The 25th Hour is both a revelation and a challenge. Schore redefines mediocrity not as incompetence but as cowardice--the idea you didn't share, the tough conversation you sidestepped, the decision you let drift. The result is a bracing guide to reclaiming your time by confronting the emotional habits that quietly give it away." – Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive and The Power of Regret

Are you craving not just extra time but the wisdom and self-awareness to use it joyfully and effectively? An elite executive coach brings us his proprietary approach to finding at least another hour in our day to do anything we want, all by learning to manage our fears and other emotions better.

We often equate saving time with working smarter. If only we could cut unnecessary meetings, streamline emails and collaborate more strategically, we could claw back all the stolen hours in our day. While these tactical adjustments help, they only skim the surface. The real problem isn't external, but internal.

In The 25th Hour, Neal Schore reveals how our emotional reactions quietly eat away not just at our time but also our energy. It's the unproductive worrying, the anxiety that blooms and spirals, the decisions we make based on fear, the obsession over other people's actions and behaviors--all those complicated emotional dynamics that we so rarely address at work. More than anything else, we get in our own way.

In three parts, The 25th Hour offers a simple, practical, paradigm-shifting approach to professional development, moving the focus beyond strategies for greater efficiency to what really costs us so much time and energy: our uncontrolled emotional responses.

Part I starts us off with some simple tools that can help you handle yourself better in any professional exchange, including the one question you should always ask yourself.

Part II introduces a series of strategies for maneuvering when life isn't going as you'd hoped, including a failsafe way for resetting after a distracting or tough experience leaves you in a miasma of self-doubt.

Part III helps you reach new levels of achievement and efficiency by firing your fears, breaking with your automatic responses, and fighting back against impostor's syndrome, with creative tools that will make you smile as you put them to work.

Drawing on Schore's personal experiences and his successful work with some of today's most consequential business leaders, The 25th Hour will show you how to manage yourself in order to manage your professional life. With proven guidance and tools for becoming more self-aware, reigning in unruly feelings and preventing needless drama, this book will equip everyone from CEOs to students with the skills to focus in on what matters to work more productively and efficiently while also having more fun along the way. The counterintuitive surprise? Your colleagues will love that you don't waste their time either!

Bioinspired: How Nature Made Us Modern, Drives Today's Technological Innovation, and Inspires a Future Worth Inventing

by Samuel Cord Stier

Since the dawn of humanity, nature has inspired our best ideas and most revolutionary inventions. This book shows how nature shapes innovation today, and how it may be the key to a sustainable future.

Humans are recognized for intelligence and creativity, but where do these stand-out smarts come from? Our celebrated brains play a role, but it turns out something else altogether unexpected is going on.

Bioinspired is a fascinating natural history of modern humankind that lays out a compelling case for Nature playing an outsized, yet unsung, role in human advancement. From the famous inventor who traveled with a dismembered ear in his suitcase, to how the internet is organized based on the human brain, to why popular music makes us get up and dance, Stier's exploration of how various aspects of technology and culture came to be will astonish readers, one fresh revelation after another.

A paradigm-shaking analysis of our technological history and what truly drives innovation, and a guide map pointing towards enduring human prosperity, Bioinspired will sweep you up, enthrall you as the pages go cascading by, and ultimately deposit you before a profoundly new horizon.

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

Discover the 27 paths to transformation in Beatrice Chestnut's definitive guide to the Enneagram

Beatrice Chestnut's The Complete Enneagram has become a modern classic for anyone seeking to understand themselves and others. In this renewed edition, Chestnut offers her signature depth and clarity as she explores all nine Enneagram types and their 27 subtypes, revealing how our core patterns shape behavior, relationships and growth.

Featuring a new introduction by the author, this edition invites readers into Chestnut's latest thinking after more than a decade of teaching and global Enneagram work. She offers new context, fresh insight and guidance for using the Enneagram as a tool for awareness and transformation in today's world.

Comprehensive, compassionate and endlessly illuminating, The Complete Enneagram remains the definitive guide to unlocking the patterns that keep us stuck and the paths that set us free.

Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well

by Daniel E Lieberman

A brilliant, no-nonsense look at two questions we never evolved to ask but now must consider several times a day: what should we eat, and why?

Daniel E. Lieberman, bestselling author of The Story of the Human Body and Exercised and founding chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, cuts through all the confusing and contradictory advice on diet and wellness to ar­gue that there can be no simple, definitive answer. Drawing from evolutionary biol­ogy, physiology, anthropology, anatomy, medical science and history, Lieberman examines, with brio and wit, the history and health effects of food from before the invention of cooking up to today's industrially produced diets. He shows how we evolved to eat almost anything, and by evalu­ating and trying many of these diets (raw food, Paleo, Mediterranean, Blue Zone, intermittent fasting, Atkins, DASH), he helps you understand why none is flawless though some are better than others.

Lieberman explores the costs and benefits of cheap, energy-rich, tempting, and often unhealthy, ultra-processed foods; the tangled roots of weight gain; how diet influences obesity, heart disease and cancer; and the claims of benefits offered by high- and low-fat diets, meal replacements, inter­mittent fasting, carnivorism, vegetarianism and veganism--while also showing how over centu­ries most cultures evolved ingenious ways to grow and cook healthy, delicious food.

This fascinating and entertaining sci­ence-based book on nutrition, digestion and health will teach you how to be well fed instead of fed up with dietary hucksterism.

Regen: A New Future for Farming, Food, and Health

by David R Montgomery

A century of conventional farming has left our planet with sick soil. Once fertile farmlands are now dusty and degraded, accelerating food insecurity, biodiversity loss and climate change. David Montgomery has devoted decades to investigating this damage. ReGen, his manifesto, lays out practical and productive solutions to recover the health of our land through soil-building regenerative agriculture.

Drawing on the work of farmers, historians and researchers, he forcefully articulates the power of combining cover cropping, no or low tillage and crop diversity to rebuild soil health. The combination allows farmers to greatly reduce or eliminate synthetic fertilize and pesticide use and can help address a number of today's most pressing problems.

Along the way, he takes apart common myths around conventional farming, animal agriculture and plant-based diets. Charting a course for action, Montgomery lays out 10 policy recommendations, from subsidizing young farmers to establishing a national network of demonstration farms to safeguard the future of our food supply.

ReGen shows us how reforming the way we see and treat the land can address critically underappreciated and yet eminently solvable problems to restore the health of our land and secure civilization's agricultural foundation and a healthy future for our society and ourselves.

House Hushing: The Simple Method to Declutter and Decorate for a More Peaceful Home

by Myquillyn Smith

YOUR HOME CAN BE BOTH SIMPLE AND SOULFUL

If you've ever found yourself in an endless loop of decorating and decluttering, you're not alone.

We've been told that a peaceful home means a nearly empty home. But peace isn't found in emptiness; it's found in intention.

Myquillyn Smith, the original voice behind House Hushing, will help you create a simple, storied home full of personality, without being overly full of stuff.

In House Hushing you'll learn to:

• Declutter backwards: a mercifully simple, revolutionary new way to make decisions about what should stay and what should go
• Decorate quietly: make small, thoughtful shifts that major on impact
• Style soulfully: personalize your space with pieces that matter
• Live seasonally: recognize rhythms that help you create a home that supports your ever-changing life

House Hushing isn't about having less for the sake of less--it's about creating clarity, comfort and beauty that lasts, so your home can finally feel like a place to rest, gather and belong.

It's time to finally hush your house.

"A smart how-to on bringing personality into one's home without clutter. . . . Filled with practical advice and hard-earned wisdom, this will help readers make their home a tranquil place without sacrificing style." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything

by Kathryn Jezer-Morton

"A thought-provoking analysis on what exactly we're doing with all our many hours of screen time." – Harper's Bazaar

An eye-opening look at how social media shapes the stories we tell and the lives we lead

Over the past two decades, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok have revolutionized how we document and share our lives. We once archived our experiences in photo albums, and now we capture our most significant moments in reels and photo dumps. Whether we prefer to admit it or not, social media is where our history lives now.

In The Story of Your Life, journalist and New York magazine columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton examines how these algorithm-driven platforms not only change the way we share information but also shape the content itself. What stories do we choose to tell, and how do these choices reflect and shape our evolving identities?

Through rigorous research and intimate interviews with everyday people, Jezer-Morton explores how the platforms on which we have told our life stories for the past twenty years have determined what those stories have come to look and sound like. Today our attention spans are short, and our stories reflect that, with spectacle and exaggeration playing ever-larger roles in our accounts of everyday life.

By examining how we share, talk and post about our milestones, vacations, homes, relationships, hardships, politics and more, Jezer-Morton shows just how pervasive and influential our social media platforms have become in how we view ourselves and what we consider to be a life well lived.

Smart, funny and sharply observant, The Story of Your Life delivers an original and revealing look at our lives online and off and offers us a fresh perspective on the ways social media shapes the very arcs of our lives.

What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast

by Caroline Chambers

Following the breakout success of the New York Times bestselling What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, Substack star Caroline Chambers returns with a new cookbook offering 100 more recipes for busy people who love good food, and these can be made even faster! 

Caroline Chambers famously doesn't feel like cooking--and she's built a whole brand on that premise. Her superpowers are eliminating unnecessary steps; minimizing dirty dishes; and making dinnertime as simple, stress-free and fun as possible. While plenty of obstacles stand between you and a delicious meal, being short on time is probably the biggest one.

This exciting follow-up cookbook is once again organized into three time-based chapters. You'll find recipes for 100 dinners, all of which are complete meals and can be made with no more than 30 minutes hands-on time in the kitchen--and yes, that includes chopping, marinating and all other prep! Delicious meals include:

• Flank Steak with Elote Salsa
• Fish and Veggie Curry
• Rotisserie-ish Chicken with Schmaltzy Lemon Dressing
• Smoky Black Beans
• Fried Rice

Every quick and easy recipe features Caro's signature swaps, riffs, tips and shortcuts to empower you to make these recipes work for you, not the other way around! You'll also find special treasures throughout the book, including anchor recipes you can spin into five different dishes, so you can DIY your favorites.

Plus, helpful back-of-book indexes allow you to search by both ingredient, useful when, say, you've got ground meat in the freezer, and occasion or mood, like when you cannot be bothered to chop a single thing. Even on the nights when you think there's no way, no how, What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast will help you get a full, flavorful meal on the table in basically no time.

Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail

by Earl Swift

From the New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes an intricately plotted tale of two end-to-end adventures through the Appalachian Trail's twenty-two hundred miles, braided around a third strand, that of the trail's most notorious tragedy that has haunted Earl Swift for thirty years.

In 1990, a youthful Earl Swift backpacked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, a transformative experience that colored every aspect of his later life. He emerged from his hike across the rugged, sky-high roof of fourteen eastern states a sharper and more organized thinker, a better problem solver and a committed outdoorsman.

But he also left the AT with baggage: Early in his odyssey, he spent time with a couple of other southbounders, who were friendly, capable and doing everything right, but who were nonetheless murdered weeks later at a mountaintop campsite in Pennsylvania, a fit of violence that the killer never explained.

Half a lifetime later, Swift returned to the trail to find out whether he was still, in his sixties, equal to the AT's roller-coaster terrain. Driving him, too, was a quest for answers that had nagged at him since that first hike: What had happened at that campsite to turn two smart, bighearted people into prey? Why had fate chosen them when other hikers, Swift included, seemed more likely candidates? And how could such a grisly episode have unfolded in the backcountry's sylvan loveliness, not to mention one of the safest places around?

Up on Cove Mountain is the arresting account of Swift's 2024 trek through the AT's enduring wonders and the ghosts of its past, a chronicle of swashbuckling adventure coupled with a meditation on the nature of risk and the risks of nature.

July New Release Books

Scavenging Beauty: A Memoir in Walks

by Angelica Glass

In this beguiling memoir of discovery and transformation, a woman walks every street in Santa Cruz County, California, and finds unexpected healing

Angelica Glass spent decades as a social worker helping families struggling with poverty, addiction, abuse and neglect. Needing relief from work-related stress, she turned to walking as an outlet. What began as a way to incorporate more exercise into her busy life transformed into something extraordinary: a years-long odyssey in which Glass drew upon physical exercise, a close observation of the natural world, and long periods of introspection to reconcile with her own past.

Between moments of awe as she explored her community and documented what she saw with her camera, she grappled with the turmoil of her early years in a complicated, challenging family, the aging process, long-held insecurities and grief.

Whether wandering through residential neighborhoods, over redwood-strewn mountain passes, or along the seashore, Glass found solace and developed a growing sense of peace. By looking to the natural world to suture old wounds -- by scavenging beauty on her terms -- she came to understand what it means to feel whole. 

Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild (Original)

by Heather Hansman

The inspiring, untold story of three incredible women who spearheaded recreation, conservation and resilience in America's most beloved landscapes, for readers of Pam Houston and David Grann

Throughout the 20th century Georgie White, Anne LaBastille and Dolores LaChapelle did more to inspire our love of the great outdoors than just about anyone.

• Georgie devoted her life to the Grand Canyon, kickstarting the river running craze in the 40s and igniting the recreation industry
• Anne, a wilderness guide and bestselling author, protected endangered species and predicted the impacts of climate change from her isolated, off-grid cabin in the Adirondacks.
• And deep powder skier Dolores developed an environmental philosophy that shaped everything from the radical environmental movement of the '70s to modern conservation ethics.

Now, for the first time, outdoor journalist and bestselling author of Powder Days Heather Hansman goes deep into multiple rugged American landscapes to bring three fascinating lives to the forefront of the outdoor movement, affirming their rightful place in the larger story of an evolving American wild.

Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites

by Dino Martins

Welcome to the hidden, squirming world of parasites -- some of the most misunderstood creatures with whom we share the Earth (and our bodies).

"Astonishing, eye-opening and inspiring." – Chloe Dalton, author of Raising Hare

There is the tapeworm, which can grow 120 feet in length within the gut of a whale; the tsetse fly, a notorious vector of disease that can pierce the skin even of crocodiles with its needle-like mouth; and the most universal symbol of parasitic behavior: the leech. Long villainized as, well, parasitic, these creatures are actually a vital part of every ecosystem--and Dr. Dino Martins, an award-winning entomologist and biologist from Kenya, has made it his life's mission to demystify these beguiling beings.

Hidden Creatures is a journey across the world 10 times over, from Martins's home in the wilds of East Africa to the rainforests of Borneo to cities and backyards across the globe. Along the way we encounter brilliant and eccentric experts who join Martins on his adventures to investigate not only parasites but their hosts, from hyraxes and hippos to, of course, humans.

Immersive, driven by an utterly infectious curiosity, and sure to transform every reader's understanding of these organisms, Hidden Creatures has the magnetic force of a David Attenborough documentary and introduces a monumental, charming new voice in science writing.

The Solo Honeymoon: A Brief Beautiful True Love Story

by Laura Murphy - Bret Witter

A romantic, life-affirming memoir about a young woman's solo honeymoon to Europe after her fiancé's sudden death weeks before their wedding, and the community of hope and wonder she built along the way

When Laura and Devon sat down to plan their honeymoon, Castellina in Chianti, Italy, was the obvious destination. Four months later, Laura found herself standing in a secret spot at the edge of the village watching the sunset. It would have been perfect, if Devon had been there with her. But Laura's fiancé, the love of her life, had died in her arms a month before their wedding.

The Solo Honeymoon follows Laura as she faces her fears and heartbreak by going alone on the honeymoon she had planned with Devon. From screaming from the mountaintops in Ireland to wandering the busy streets of London to dining on the French Riviera and watching the sun set over Castellina, Laura travels across Europe to find solid ground. Along the way, readers learn her unique love story and come to know Devon and what made their relationship so special.

The result is a beautiful exploration of what it means to choose life in the face of unimaginable pain. The Solo Honeymoon shines a light on the joy of love, the depths of grief, and all the beauty there is in the world.

The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet

by Jason Dove Mark

As the climate emergency worsens and biodiversity shrinks, we somehow get used to it. We struggle to remember what summers were like before the unrelenting heat, in those years before wildfires became an annual routine. We adapt, we normalize. Scientists call this "shifting baseline syndrome," and they warn that it's why we are increasingly sleepwalking toward disaster.

In this inspiring manifesto, environmental advocate and longtime editor-in-chief of Sierra magazine Jason Dove Mark offers antidotes that everyone can use to resist ecological amnesia and make lasting progress to repair and revive a livable planet. He puts forth four simple but powerful rules for a life lived in communion with the Earth:

Go outside
Bear witness
Make a record
Pass it on

From the mountains of California to the lakes of Wisconsin and across the lush forests of his beloved Pacific Northwest, Mark shares moving examples of citizen scientists, birdwatchers, mountain climbers, and fishermen who are putting these remedies into practice. And he makes the case for easy, everyday practices that can help us "remember the earth" and support environmental conservation, restoration, and rewilding. The Earth Said Remember Me is a hopeful, achievable prescription for protecting the planet, one citizen at a time.

Cuisine to Kill for (New 2026 Cookbook): Over 50 Recipes and True Crime Stories from the World's Most Haunted Places

by Amy Bruni

From bestselling author, paranormal investigator, and Kindred Spirits co-host Amy Bruni, Cuisine to Kill For intertwines the macabre with the culinary to uncover some of history's most gruesome true crime stories and the ghosts they left behind. Whether set in a haunted castle, a mysterious hotel, an abandoned prison, or a popular pub, these paranormal tales span the entire globe--and their accompanying culinary treats are equally wide-ranging.

Featuring nearly 60 locations, this book includes:

• Gruesome true crime tales paired with spine-tingling paranormal encounters.
• 59 recipes inspired by history, local flavors, or even eerie menu items served at these haunted spots.
• Authentic vintage photographs from each haunted site, bringing these violent histories to life.
• Mysteriously mouthwatering food photography, styled to inspire a killer kitchen experience.

Sink your teeth into tempting dishes and devilish drinks, including:

• Sunday Roast with Gravy from Ten Bells Pub in England (Jack the Ripper, anyone?).
• Meat Stew with Polenta and Egg from Romania's foreboding Bran Castle.
• The Elderflower Rose Gin Trifle from Canada's stunning Empress Hotel.
• Louis XV's Drinking Chocolate from the Palace of Versailles.
• The Reindeer Fart from Alaska's spirited Red Onion Saloon.
• Shrimp Wiggle from the Pennhurst Asylum in Pennsylvania (only if you dare).

Whether you're drawn to the paranormal, obsessed with true crime, or simply hungry for a historic culinary escape, this cookbook is for:

• true crime aficionados who love a good (and gory) backstory.
• history buffs and travel enthusiasts fascinated by the darker side of iconic locations.
• hosts and entertainers craving unique ways to captivate guests.
• foodies with guts to try centuries-old--and disturbingly "authentic"--recipes.

Amy Bruni effortlessly merges her love of the mysterious with jaw-droppingly delicious recipes, offering a cookbook that's as deathly as it is delectable. Cuisine To Kill For isn't just a collection of recipes; it's a passport to haunted history with every chilling page. If you've got an appetite for eerie tales, blood-curdling history, and global flavors, this haunted cookbook is your ultimate culinary companion.

Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef

by Nephi Craig

Named a nonfiction book "Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer" by the New York Times

From Indigenous chef Nephi Craig, a searing personal and cultural reckoning that demonstrates the power of food to heal intergenerational wounds

At just eighteen years old, Nephi Craig was facing a felony charge that could have put him in prison for years. Having struggled with substance abuse throughout his teens, his life had come to a dizzying halt. So when a judge ordered three years of probation instead--on the condition he attend work or school--Craig took it as an opportunity for a new lease on life. Not long after, he enrolled in a culinary arts program a few hours from Whiteriver, Arizona, where he had grown up on the White Mountain Apache Tribe Reservation. Expecting little more than a means to an end, Craig quickly discovered a talent and passion for cooking. He also experienced a profound dissonance as the only Indigenous person in the kitchen, preparing European recipes that--disguised by their French and Italian names--relied on ingredients native to the Americas.

Craig untangled the buried histories of Indigenous cultivars such as tomato, cacao, and amaranth, each one a portal into possibility as well as a marker of the violent legacy of colonization. As he did so, he found new ways to honor his Apache and Navajo roots and build Indigenous food sovereignty. His journey led him around the world, from top fine-dining restaurants in the United States to high-profile banquets in Brazil, England, Germany, and Japan. All the while, Craig wrestled with addiction, entering one treatment center after another in the hopes that he could get--and remain--sober.

In the heat, frenzy, and collaborative energy of restaurant kitchens, Craig found a lifeline. But when he was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a career-defining executive chef job and an opportunity to serve his community back on the Rez, he realized his true vocation. Interweaving personal reflection with illuminating cultural insight, Our Knives Will Save Us offers a vision of hope: one where food is decolonized and cooking is a pathway to healing for all of us.

June Lifestyle Books

Autoimmunity and the Good Girls: How Permission to Put Ourselves First Has the Power to Keep Us Well

by Sara Hirsh Bordo

"This illuminating volume will liberate many women from self-suppression and its frequent consequence, physical illness." – Gabor Maté M.D. New York Times bestselling author of The Myth of Normal

The inspirational, deeply researched wellness journey by the award-winning filmmaker, activist and founder of Women Rising, shining a light on how too many girls are trained to self-silence and serve others -- and how we can heal.

For generations, women have been told to be "good" -- to put others first, to silence their own voices, to neglect their own needs. But a new groundswell of evidence reveals the cost: when our lives are compromised, so are our immune systems.

Raised in a big Texas-Lebanese family as the eldest and only daughter, Sara Hirsh Bordo grew up caring for everyone else's needs at the expense of her own. Later, as an acclaimed director lifting up other women's stories, she watched her own body collapse under the weight of autoimmune disease and cancer. Only when she finally reclaimed sovereignty over her own voice, did she heal.

Determined to understand this link, Sara funded the first quantitative research at the intersection of female empowerment and autoimmunity. The results were groundbreaking: women raised in caretaker roles, especially eldest daughters, are disproportionately likely to develop autoimmune diseases, such as Hashimoto's, lupus, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and more. This study, endorsed by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona, garnered national media attention and has been shared across 20 countries.

In these pages, you will find:

• How compromised girlhood identities create compromised immune systems in womanhood--and how to rewrite your story.
• Impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on autoimmunity and poor health.
• Stunning findings from her research, such as more than 6 in 10 women with autoimmune diseases were raised as the oldest or only daughter in their families
• What radically changes in health when authenticity, environment, and self-permission finally align.
• Inner girlhood work, including re-mothering through modern and mystical feminine archetypes.
• How to unlearn your primary role as a caregiver and practical guides for evolving from "good" to "real" at any age.

Weaving together memoir, exclusive expert interviews, evidence-based findings and women's personal stories, Autoimmunity and the Good Girls is a rousing testament to the missing modality in women's health -- sovereign self-permission to speak up, to transform and heal.

Leave the Lights on: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species

by Elizabeth Dunn - Jiaying Zhao

"Who knew that saving the world could be so much fun?"-- Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness

How to make an impact on climate change by taking actions that bring you joy. What if the most effective ways to fight climate change made you happy?

Psychologist Elizabeth Dunn and climate behavior scientist Jiaying Zhao challenge everything we think we know about sustainable living. While most climate advice demands self-denial (eat less, travel less, want less), this groundbreaking book offers a counterintuitive truth: you can make your life better while saving our species at the same time. The authors reveal how tweaking everyday decisions around food, travel, housing and shopping can nudge us toward a tipping point of mass action, without tipping us into burnout.

You will discover that:

• Joy is a powerful climate strategy. When you enjoy the changes you're making, you're more likely to stick with them--and spread them.
• You don't have to go vegan or give up flying. Smart substitutions (chicken over beef, carry-on over checked bags) make a real dent in emissions with less personal friction.
• Small talk matters. Normalizing climate conversations with friends and family helps shift social norms and catalyzes cultural change.
• Give yourself permission to leave the lights on. Focus on higher-impact actions instead of smaller interventions.

Leave the Lights On is a bold invitation to reimagine climate action, not as a burden but as an opportunity to build a brighter future, without guilt, without gloom and without giving up the things that make life worth living. With warmth, clarity and a refreshingly optimistic voice, Zhao and Dunn reframe what it means to "do your part." Because sustainability doesn't lie in doing everything, it lies in doing something, joyfully.

Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex

by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland

In delightful watercolor comics of pregnant seahorse dads, spider oral sex and the four-headed echidna penis, Perrin Roosevelt Ireland takes us on a wild biodiversity ride through queerness, infidelity, consent, divorce, sex change and even sexual cannibalism in the animal world. Poking the Squid illustrates the splendid diversity of nature's eroticism.

For too long, science has prudishly obscured the wildly creative kinkiness of animal sexual behavior. But Poking the Squid celebrates how assumptions about sex are shifting. Ireland interviews researchers probing the leading edge of animal reproductive biology and, with the help of her cats Ursula and Pudge, brings readers along as she learns the latest discoveries that implode traditional notions of sex roles, relationships and just who is mounting whom.

These researchers are making dolphin vaginal popsicles, retrieving sperm packets from male squid mouths and documenting dolphin orgies. From the externalized clitoris of the spotted hyena to mating-by-fusion in anglerfish, Poking the Squid draws on decades of feminist and queer theory to show that sexual diversity is biodiversity, and boisterous boinking is only natural.

Ireland reminds us that we humans, from habitat destruction to climate change, impact all of animal life, including their private lives. Yet Earth's sexual ecosystem is filled with joy, resilience and vitality, a balm to climate grief and a reason to protect all forms of nature's pleasure. And by illuminating and celebrating animal diversity, Poking the Squid invites us to embrace our own.

The Hidden Nations of Animals: A Grand Tour of Earth's Wild Civilizations

by Ryan Huling - Oliver Uberti

An instant classic of nature writing and breathtaking blueprint for a more expansive view of animalkind, inspired by the profound sense of awe that accompanies an expedition into unknown lands.

"Shatters the notion that humanity holds a monopoly on civilization." -- Joaquin Phoenix

"This book will leave you feeling like a vital member of the broader world of animals -- a cosmopolitan citizen of the zoopolis." – Robert Moor

From far-flung forest settlements in Canada's beaver belt to disputed territories of clashing Argentine ant armies, Ryan Huling's around-the-world odyssey takes us to places most people don't even know exist. Along the way, we meet renowned ecologists, anthropologists, geographers and historians whose work has uncovered vast sub-Saharan tunnel complexes, booming animal metropolises nestled within the urban sprawl of the American Southwest and ancient Silk Road-style migration routes that traverse the Eurasian Steppe.

When humans settle in an area, it is deemed, by definition, populated. By contrast, the millions of other species we share this planet with have long been viewed as fleeting ephemera, living brief and transitory lives in "uninhabited" wilderness. Over the course of a year, Huling investigates how technology is rapidly changing that perception by deepening humanity's understanding of our fellow animals and their unique relationships with the land, air and sea.

His immersive account fuses with vivid full-color maps and hand-drawn sketches by award-winning cartographer Oliver Uberti, revealing a radically reimagined version of our world and illuminating its true contours for the first time.

Grill: Easy Grilling, Big Flavor

by Jamie Oliver

TRANSFORM YOUR GRILLING WITH JAMIE OLIVER'S 90 EASY, FLAVOR-PACKED RECIPES--PERFECT FOR OUTDOOR COOKING.

Discover how to grill, smoke and sizzle your way to crowd-pleasing meals with Jamie's ultimate guide to grilling. In this sizzling cookbook, Jamie shares 90 brilliant recipes that show just how exciting, creative and delicious grilling can be. Whether you're cooking on charcoal, gas or over an open flame, Jamie's got you covered, from marinades and rubs to mastering heat, smoke and timing.

Get ready for smoky flavors, bold ingredients and good times with recipes that turn every meal into a feast to remember, whatever the weather, including:

• Romesco Cauliflower
• Herby Eggplant and Zingy Feta Flatbreads
• Grilled Black Pepper Peaches
• Arrabbiata Chicken Drumsticks
• Lemon Steamed Fish and Charred Greens
• Paprika Pulled Pork
• Lamb Moussaka Burgers
• Grilled Green Grain Salad

… and plenty more mouth-watering grilled dishes, sides and sauces to keep your grill game strong all year round.

Packed with Jamie's best tips for marinating, grilling and cooking outdoors, this is the ultimate companion for anyone who loves good food, good company and cooking in the open air. You'll be bossing that grill like a pro in no time. Big flavor, smoky vibes and Jamie Oliver at his best, this is the grilling cookbook you'll use again and again.

Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution

by Brooke Barbier

America's founding generation drank a staggering amount of alcohol by today's standards.

It influenced their politics, built and sustained their relationships, and drove the economy. Booze was not a small part of colonial society, nor covertly consumed in private spaces. It was integral to American life.

Historians have been reluctant to discuss the influence of alcohol on the founding of the United States, but it is necessary if we want to gain a full picture of the movement. It's time to reveal the drunken side of the American Revolution.

In Cocked and Boozy, two of Benjamin Franklin's 200 terms for drunkenness, public historian Brooke Barbier examines the role that alcohol played in spurring, binding and winning the American Revolution and how it shaped the nascent United States. Every chapter concludes with an 18th century cocktail recipe made for modern tastes, so readers can participate in their own historic tippling.

The intoxicating story begins in 1763 after the end of the French and Indian War and spans until 1800, with the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson. During these nearly four decades, Americans witnessed unprecedented disorder and prodigious growth, and through it all, powering it, in fact, was alcohol. Put simply, drink helped transform British subjects into Americans.

In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure

by Rowan Jacobsen

Upending everything we thought we knew about sun exposure, this trenchant investigation into the "zero-sun policy" sounds the call on the many health benefits of the sun, and what we risk when we minimize our exposure.

A quiet revolution is transforming our understanding of sunlight's effects on human health. For decades, a "zero-sun" policy has characterized our approach to sun protection, advising us to stay out of the sun whenever possible and apply sunscreen daily to any skin that might be exposed, rain or shine, summer or winter, indoors or out. But recent studies have proved that this policy is thoroughly mistaken and that this prolific misunderstanding is causing us to miss out on many of the health benefits of sun exposure.

In this incisive work, acclaimed journalist Rowan Jacobsen presents the growing case for the importance of modest sun exposure for our health and well-being. Aided by the most up-to-date studies on the effects of sunlight on human health, Jacobsen presents a much-needed, lucid assessment of not only what the sun can do for us, but how a lack of sun could actively be harming us.

In Defense of Sunlight sounds the call on what researchers have been sure of for years, and what health care providers and media outlets have been slow to take up: that sunlight is one of the simplest, and most equitable, treatments for a variety of health issues, from diabetes to dementia to multiple sclerosis.

Laying out the new science of sunlight in a straightforward and responsible manner for mainstream readers, this book is an eye-opening story of scientific discovery, outlining not only best practices for sun exposure, but the story of how current recommendations became misguided, how a few inquisitive scientists glimpsed the truth and deciphered the mechanisms responsible and how everyone can safely incorporate this new knowledge into their daily lives.

It also exposes the implicit injustice underlying current approaches, which benefit the whitest people on earth (who are the most susceptible to skin cancer) at the expense of those with darker skin (who suffer extremely low rates of skin cancer and have the most to gain from sun exposure).

A call for a return to common sense in our relationship with our local star, In Defense of Sunlight offers its own seven words of advice: Get sun. Not too much. Go outside.

Related: Ready to turn your hobbies into a business or bigger project? Check out advice for the Self-Starter Reader Type, or browse our Spring Best-Of List for The Hobbyist for more recommendations.