Fall is the perfect time to indulge in your favorite hobbies, whether you enjoy arts and crafts, health and wellness or trying inventive new recipes. Want to try your hand at canning, whip up adorable amigurumi characters or grow herbs and plants indoors? We've got the books to help you get started!
Our round up of the best new release books for The Hobbyist Reader Type includes everything you need to learn a new skill, transform your living space or level up your well-being. Browse our handpicked collection of hobby and lifestyle new release books to fill your TBR list and load up on inspiration.
New Craft & Lifestyle Books September 2026
Bible Stories Amigurumi: 16 Inspirational Crochet Projects
by Bianca Costa Dos Santos Esmanhoto
From Adam and Eve to Jonah and the whale, learn to crochet more than a dozen adorable amigurumi designs inspired by your favorite bible stories!
Your favorite stories from the scriptures come alive with Bible Stories Amigurumi! Renowned crochet artist Bianca Santos uses her signature amigurumi style to recreate more than a dozen favorite biblical figures. Featuring gentle, expressive faces and carefully considered details, these projects bring beloved biblical characters to life in a sweet, approachable style. Each pattern is designed to be both meaningful and fun to create, making this collection a joyful way to connect with timeless Bible stories through the art of crochet.
From Moses with the Ten Commandments and Joseph with his many-colored coat to David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion, and Noah with his animals, there is something here for everyone. Lavishly illustrated with beautiful and helpful images of the pieces, each project has clear, concise instructions and is accompanied by the scriptures that tell these beloved stories. Whether you are making these as gifts or to keep for yourself, the projects in Bible Stories Amigurumi will become treasured keepsakes to cherish for a lifetime.
Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and from the Heart [A Baking Book]
by Carla Hall - Lauren Chattman
Acclaimed chef, TV host, Top Chef fan-favorite, and author Carla Hall returns to her first culinary love story--baking--with over 80 sweet and savory recipes.
"For years, I have had the pleasure of sitting next to Carla and listening to her explain the science and the art of baking. Now you get to experience her knowledge, wisdom, and humor as well in Carla Bakes."--Duff Goldman
For Carla Hall, baking is a creative outlet, her source of play, and her first true passion. But her journey from absolute beginner to Top Chef fan-favorite didn't start until she was well into her twenties with two careers-- accounting and modeling --already behind her. Away from home and missing the Southern flavors she grew up with, she took to the kitchen and began to experiment, master, and perfect.
Now, as a multi-cookbook author and guest judge on multiple baking competitions, Carla is ready to share all her baking knowledge that will guide you whether you're at novice baker or an expert one. Carla Bakes is filled with over 80 recipes for baking savory and sweet goods rooted in her Southern traditions and inspired by her world travels. Carla brings her joy and playfulness to every recipe, showing you just how much fun it is to bake and bring your own twists to new recipes, including:
- Breakfast treats like Sorghum Flour Drop Biscuits, Crisp Sweet Corn Waffles, and Savory Clafoutis with Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Smoky Tomato Curd
- Cookies like Nut Butter Puffed Cereal Treats, Southern Pecan Crinkle Baklava, and Shortbread Cookie Canvas
- Pastries like Giant Frosted Strawberry Pop Tart, Sweet Po-Punkin Pie, and Ham & Cheese Paris-Brest
- Cakes like Double Chocolate Oat Flour Snack Cake, Lemon Meringue Cake, and Fairytale Forest Party Cake
- Yeasted goods like Hot Cross Milk Buns with Port- and Hibiscus-Soaked Fruit, Butternut Squash Beignets with Spiced Sugar, and Chocolate Focaccia
If you've ever felt intimidated by baking, set those fears aside. Carla's expert guidance and encouragement in Carla Bakes will leave you feeling confident and inspired in your kitchen!
Cook Asian: 100+ Flavor-Packed, Foolproof Recipes from My Asian American Kitchen
by Chris Joe - Carolynn Carreno
Chris Joe, creator of the beloved and reliable online platform @cj.eats, dishes out tried and true recipes for classic Asian dishes
As a third-generation Chinese-American, Chris Joe grew up in Los Angeles enjoying wontons, roast duck, crispy pork belly, and more Asian classics with his family. From a young age, Chris learned first-hand the essential cooking techniques required to make these classic dishes from his grandparents, who settled in California as first-generation butchers and grocery store owners.
After they had passed, Chris continued to study and practice those techniques, eventually devoting himself to learning the secrets behind the beloved dishes he grew up eating. Soon he'd perfected Egg Drop Soup (notoriously simple, but finnicky), hand-pulled noodles (intimidating, but do-able!), and even dishes inspired by his wife Kat's Korean heritage like Korean Seafood Pancakes, or Haemul-pajeon.
He mastered frying, velveting meats, folding dumplings, and more, and each recipe he conquered made him more confident and fearless in the kitchen. He wanted to inspire that feeling in others and began sharing his skills and his passion of Asian food on social media, and now has a huge and devoted audience of fans who love his approachable (and straight-forward) cooking style.
In COOK ASIAN, Chris offers carefully crafted recipes and key tips (toss the noodles with oil before stir frying to prevent them from sticking! Salt the cucumbers for a crispier, crunchier texture!) to make sure readers not only know the how of each step, but also the why.
From an authentic Wonton Noodle Soup and Chicken Karaage to Korean BBQ Beef (Bulgogi) and Pad Thai, Chris demystifies complex recipes with straightforward steps, and a "no-advice-left-behind approach" to inspire readers to build their own cooking muscle, and make these irresistible dishes part of their life, too.
Home Food Storage: A Preparedness Plan for Creating and Using an Emergency Food Supply
by Allison Michael
From stocking your kitchen cabinets to stocking a prepper pantry, this is the essential guide to creating a practical food storage system for everyday life and long-term emergencies, from the creator of This Prepared Life.
Allison Michael's unique, three-layered system is all about building food storage for both short- and long-term emergencies. The first layer is your own kitchen pantry--it includes the foods you'll eat in the next week or two.
The second layer is your "home grocery store," containing the food you'll eat over the coming year; you'll "shop" from there to refill your pantry. The third layer is long-term storage for a future emergency; these are bulk quantities of foods, packaged carefully to last years or even decades.
Whether you're trying to shop less often, still skittish from living through the pandemic food shortages, or aspiring to fully prepare your family to survive a long-term emergency, Home Food Storage provides the skills you need to implement and maintain a successful food storage system--one that starts with a well-stocked kitchen and is full of nutritious foods that your family enjoys eating.
As part of this essential guide, Michael teaches:
- How to choose foods that will last in storage
- How to package food properly to extend its shelf life
- How to track and rotate your food supply
- How to calculate your family's food needs, based on what they actually eat
Indoor Edible Garden: Creative Ways to Grow Herbs, Fruit & Vegetables in Your Home
by DK DK
Want to grow your own, but have no garden?
Indoor Edible Garden shows you how to grow herbs, fruit, and vegetables that look good and taste better - all in the comfort of your own home.
Discover a range of ingenious indoor garden projects that will deliver a homegrown harvest with a difference. Grow your own tamarillo towers and wild strawberries on shelves, mushrooms in just 14 days, and alfalfa sprouts in jars.
Make the most of your indoor space and turn windowsills, worktops, walls, balconies, and even ceilings into stunning and delicious indoor gardens.
Indoor Edible Garden is packed with all the knowledge you need to understand which plant varieties thrive in the home, how to maximize your light and space, and how to enjoy harvesting and eating fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs no matter how much - or little - space you have.
The Opposite of Happiness: How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us
by George Loewenstein
A founding father of behavioral economics reveals the hidden logic of negative emotions with a clarity and humor that make our worst feelings strangely easier to bear.
Every age has its illusions. Ours is that happiness is the natural human condition. Behavioral economist George Loewenstein argues the opposite: that our lives are inextricably shaped by the darker emotions we spend so much time trying to avoid.
In The Opposite of Happiness, he draws on decades of influential research--as well as insights from literature and from his own life experiences--to offer a tour de force reexamination of the role negative emotions play in our lives: why pain is stickier than pleasure, how the modern world makes bad feelings worse, and why our attempts to escape misery usually only sharpen its sting.
Those who struggle to find and sustain happiness are not unlucky or flawed, he argues, but merely human, suffering the slings and arrows of an inherently negative nature. This knowledge comes, however, not as a bitter pill but as much-needed solace for anyone navigating the frustrations and heartbreaks of modern life.
In this fascinating deconstruction of negative emotions and their behavioral consequences, Loewenstein explains how features of our mind, like memory, attention, and self-esteem, conspire to keep us down. He reveals the downside of supposedly uplifting feelings like hope, and untangles misery's intertwined forms: guilt and shame, jealousy and envy, loneliness and depression, impatience, boredom and regret. Drawing from a first-of-its-kind Misery Survey, Loewenstein shares participants' stories about, and insights into, the diversity of negative emotions that collectively weigh us down.
Providing a provocative and refreshing counter argument to the self-help industry, The Opposite of Happiness shares a sobering, deeply human, and ultimately comforting truth: The sooner we understand our negative natures, the sooner we will stop feeling guilty about failing to achieve lasting bliss, and the better connected we will be to others who share the same, or their own unique mix of, negative emotions.
Plantyou Quickies: 140+ Nourishing Plant-Based Recipes for Busy People
by Carleigh Bodrug
The instant #1 New York Times bestselling author and creator of PlantYou is back with her easiest recipes yet!
Thirty minutes or less. Five-minute prep. Batch cooking. Dump-and-bake meals everyone will love. No matter how little time you have for the kitchen, Quickies has you covered with healthy, delicious meals.
PlantYou: Quickies is your go-to guide for fast, easy, plant-based cooking on days when you feel like doing anything but. Designed for real life and real schedules, Carleigh's recipes will help you get a fabulous meal on the table.
In Quickies you'll find:
- Approachable, speedy recipes, many doable in 30 minutes or less
- Carleigh's signature "Got This, Make That" visual guide to help you use what you have in your fridge and pantry
- Dump & Bake and S.O.S. (Save Our Sanity) Suppers sections for minimal mess and maximum ease
- Shortcuts and meal prep tips for when your time and energy are limited
- Gluten, nut, and oil-free options, giving you the flexibility to adapt to your own dietary needs
- A Plant Point counter with each recipe, so you can eat healthier without the stress.
With recipes for every meal, Quickies will make plant-based cooking simple, speedy, practical, and truly delicious!
Cozy Hobbies: Joyful Activities for Play & Leisure
by Kennedy Rose - Ren Fuller
The gotta-have-it guide to choosing and deep-diving into hobbies from Kennedy (Cozy K) Rose, the creative force behind @cozy.games. Explore 45+ hobbies that range far and wide, from birdwatching and woodworking to video gaming and embroidery.
"Filled with large, colorful photographs that clearly showcase each hobby, this book is as engaging to browse as it is to read. Readers looking to recharge, discover a new interest, or simply learn more about creative pursuits will find plenty of inspiration within its pages." -- Booklist, Starred Review
Amid a culture obsessed with productivity and hustle, hobbies offer us essential opportunities for joy, relaxation, mindfulness, and creativity. But finding the right hobby and committing yourself to it can be overwhelming.
If the question "What do you do for fun?" prompts sheer panic, let this book welcome you into the enriching world of hobbying. And who better to guide you than ex-lawyer-turned-professional-hobbyist and popular Instagrammer Kennedy Rose?
Cozy Hobbies highlights more than 45 wide-ranging hobbies that will help you unlock a state of wonder, make new connections, and experience the benefits of play. Through her guidance, you'll learn to cast aside the need to be "good" at hobbies, embrace the journey of experimentation, and discover how to pick the right hobbies for yourself.
In this guide, all hobbies are categorized into four distinct groups: Brain Off, Brain On, Arts & Crafts, and Physical Activity. Explore:
- Junk journaling
- Gem painting
- Knitting
- Building sets
- Geocaching
- Tabletop role-playing games
- Beading
- Foraging
- and more!
Bursting with gorgeous, full-color photography and housed in a beautiful three-piece cover with a suede spine and luxe ribbon marker, this book makes a lovely gift for anyone seeking ways to slow down, rest, and tap into play. It's ideal for displaying atop a coffee table or in a crafting corner.
Related Book Recommendations
For more craft and lifestyle books, check out our guide to the best books of Spring and Summer 2026 for The Hobbyist. You may also enjoy our top recommendations for Self-Starters and Cool Moms/Dads.