Awesome Books

Your boss might not always acknowledge your hard work, but you still deserve positive feedback. Author Robb Pearlman’s book is filled with 250 removable stickers that celebrate everyday achievements like successfully changing the toner in the printer, fixing your computer without I.T., and putting on pants for a Zoom call.

Amanda Schuster’s elegant cocktail recipe book deserves a spot on your bookshelf. The book catalogs 200 signature cocktails from bars and restaurants around the world. Each drink recipe is accompanied by details of its origins and an artful photograph of the cocktail. It’s packed with both classic cocktails and lesser-known specialty drinks.

This artful coffee table book by Charlotte and Peter Fiell and Taschen catalogs 50 incredible motorcycles from 1894 to 2020. The 512-page hardcover book is loaded with photos, technical specifications, and stories about historic rides from luxurious tourers to high-speed superbikes.

The latest edition of editor Julius Wiedemann’s coffee table book offers an A-Z catalog of some of the most influential manga creators ever. The 576-page hardcover book includes biographies and bibliographies, example art, and character descriptions from greats like Osamu Tezuka, Katsuhiro Otomo, and more.

Entertrained adds a fun twist to improving your typing that could make the exercise much more engaging, especially if you enjoy reading. Instead of making you type randomly generated words, the website lets you type along to its catalog of public domain books, including Dracula, Walden, and Leaves of Grass.

We’re not proud of it, but well-meaning inspirational affirmations only inspire eye-rolls with us. The satirical Disappointing Affirmations book (and graphite Disappointing Affirmations Pencils) gets us, inspiring laughs and “true dat” responses to backhanded pep talks like “You matter. Just not that much.” A great gift for the glass-half-empty realists in your life.

This sweeping history of global music is the best way to enjoy music without actually hearing it. Informed by travel, research, interviews, and years spent producing groundbreaking music in Cuba, Brazil, Bulgaria, Mali, Hungary, India, and beyond, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain is a spellbinding guide to music that shaped how Western popular culture sounds.

Veteran video game journalist Blake Hester catalogs the rise and fall of Guitar Hero and the music game genre as a whole. The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is a 352-page hardcover featuring interviews with some of the designers, developers, and founders of Harmonix.

The ancestors of Japanese comics date back over 1000 years, but Manga exploded in popularity in the 1950s. This fascinating history book explores how Japanese society, politics, economics, and culture influenced this popular form of entertainment. It includes hundreds of examples of Manga art along with stories and details about their creators.

This compendium from Phaidon combines and updates the three-volume Phaidon Design Classics into a single 592-page hardcover book. A must-own for appreciators of industrial design, the book showcases the most iconic and influential products and objects from the 17th to the 21st century.

Whether you played with Slinkies, Silly Putty, or Sea Monkeys when you were a kid, you’ll find some wonderful nostalgia in Steven Heller and Jim Heimann’s catalog of American toy advertising. The 528-page book features hundreds of vintage ads that sold dreams to kids and often served as a reflection of their time.

This compact reference guide and field manual is packed with tips and tricks for surviving all kinds of disasters and emergencies. The Cargen Brothers’ 72-page mini book could save a life with helpful information on subjects like building a fire, first aid, knot tying, plant identification, hand signals, navigation, and more.

Written by ex-con Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez and actor Clifton Collins Jr., this unique cookbook offers up more than 65 recipes made by inmates using instant ramen and other items they could get from the commissary while incarcerated. Among the contributors: Slash, Shia LaBeouf, and Danny Trejo.

Artist Kendra Norton’s unique coloring book has no outlines for you to color in. Instead, it’s filled with abstract blobs of color, and you draw the lines. Whether you doodle dinosaurs, flowers, buildings, or goldfish, go where your imagination takes you. In addition to the original, there are also Through the Seasons and Mindful Journeys editions.

Enjoy delicious drinks in the great outdoors with The Coastal Kitchen’s Campfire Cocktails. The book is filled with 100 drink recipes that are easy to prepare without access to a full bar. There are tasty options like Cherry Limeade for cooling down after a long hike and cozy warm-ups like Tequila Hot Chocolate for chilly nights sitting around the fire.

Tired of endless conference calls that could have been emails? Turn off your camera, go on mute, and break out the Pointless Meetings Coloring and Activity Book. Corporate Snark’s 85-page book is filled with corporate-themed word scrambles, mazes, buzzword bingo, and goofy characters to color. Available in paperback or spiral-bound. (Thanks, Harriet!)