If you’re in need of a new book light — or your bedmate who goes to sleep earlier would prefer you to use one — but you don’t want to wear one around your neck, go for a clip-on book light instead.

The 86lux Pocket E1 is actually a bookmark light by design, with an ultra-thin (0.35″) and light (60g) body that can mark your place, then unfolds up to 180° to separate the clip and light sections at reading time.

The lamp head itself can swivel left or right up to 90°, and adjusted up or down up to 60°, so there’s a lot of flexibility in how you set it up. Plus, not only does it fit all sorts of book sizes, it can also easily be slipped into your pocket.

With a press of the side button, the LED (which is also steplessly dimmable) can be switched between three different color temperatures: amber (3000K), natural (4000K), and cool (5000K), all of which have a soft glow thanks to the frosted light pane pictured below. The 400mAh battery has a max runtime of 80 hours and recharges via USB-C when needed.

Get this highly useful book light for just $15 on Amazon in a variety of colors.

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The older I get, the less forgiving I become about the books I read. If I’m reading one and it doesn’t grab me within the first couple chapters, I simply put it down and move onto another rather than make myself finish it. We all have only so much time in this world, and no one should waste such a precious resource on subpar entertainment.

I’m happy to say that V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic (book 1 of the Shades of Magic trilogy) hooked me in the first few pages. I knew before the first chapter ended that this one’s a keeper — I only wish I’d gotten to it sooner, since it released nearly a decade ago.

The story is set in a universe where four parallel Londons exist — each with varying degrees of magical influence, with the least magical one being essentially our world in the early 1800s — and all (well, three) of them have been crafted with a great degree of detail.

I went in thinking I would have a hard time keeping them all straight in my mind, but that was never a problem — Schwab’s writing style makes everything fun and easy to follow. I found myself glued to the pages as this fun, fast-paced, and high-stakes adventure played out, and man do I wish I could visit Red London for a while to check out all the sweet magical stuff they have there.

Here’s the story description:

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

For me, the inventive world-building and intriguing magic system are the highlights of A Darker Shade of Magic, and if you’re like week-ago-me and haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, I highly recommend giving it a shot. As for me, I’m eagerly anticipating reading book two!

Get the book in these formats:

• Kindle ($13)
• Apple Books ($13)
• Hardcover ($)
• Paperback ($15)
• Audible audiobook ($16)
• Audio CD ($13)

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Going in a slightly different direction from the Kindle Paperwhite and the recently mentioned BOOX Palma, which both eschew vibrant hues in favor of crisp monochrome, Kobo’s new Libra Colour e-reader is happy to present your favorite ebooks in full color.

That’s right, with this e-reader you can view book covers, inline photos and illustrations, and your own passage highlights and margin notes in all their colorful glory. It enhances the reading experience of typical books to be sure, but I’d argue it’s even better for avid readers of comic books and graphic novels.

The Libra Colour’s touchscreen makes it compatible with the Kobo Stylus 2, which makes it all the easier to highlight, annotate, markup, and illustrate to your heart’s content. It’s also rated IPX8 waterproof, so reading poolside and at the beach should be no concern at all.

And, with 2050mAh battery capacity and 32GB of storage space, you can load this thing up with thousands upon thousands of ebooks and enjoy them for several weeks between charges.

Get the Kobo Libra Colour for $220 on Amazon in your choice of white or black.

If you like the color display but are on a tighter budget, they also offer the Clara Colour, which goes for a lower price ($150) in exchange for reduced functionality:

• Smaller screen (6″ instead of 7″)
• Half the storage capacity (16 GB instead of 32 GB)
• Only Wi-Fi connectivity (no USB or Bluetooth)
• Shorter battery life (2 weeks instead of 5)
• No touch screen or stylus compatibility
• No page-turn buttons or landscape mode

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Field Notes latest quarterly limited-edition release, the “Index” edition, is actually comprised of two sets of memo book pairs, all designed to help you record and organize things that are important to you.

The first pack, containing two Log Books, is dedicated to capturing and reviewing events, experiences, and milestones, with spaces for titles, star ratings, and notes, along with a table of contents you fill out yourself.

The second pack has one Ledger Book and one Date Book. The former is where you can track any collections of items and/or numbers you like — expenses, game scores, travel mileage, shopping lists, etc — while the latter contains a year’s worth of weekly planning pages (which are undated until you say otherwise) so you can track appointments, meetings, to-dos, important events, and more.

At the back of each book is a small pocket where you can stash receipts, ticket stubs, an emergency $20 bill, a love note, or what-have-you.

To go with this release, they’ve created a memo book slipcase ($13) that can hold the entire set of four together — or any 4 or 5 other Field Notes memo books in your collection that you feel should be organized into a single set — and displays them nicely on a bookshelf.

Get either 2-pack of the “Index” Edition for $15 each at Field Notes.

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Crossword puzzles have been a fixture of New York magazine ever since its first issue published in 1968, in which the puzzle was actually created by legendary composer Stephen Sondheim, of all people.

Over the years, quite a few of those puzzles have been concocted by prolific and pun-happy puzzler Cathy Allis, and in 2019 the magazine’s editors assembled fifty of them (plus the original Sondheim one) into a large, spiral-bound book that opens flat for the most addictive and entertaining (not to mention screen-free) puzzle solving experience.

I like this bit from the book description:

Every year, millions of people attempt to complete a crossword puzzle, whether in print or online. Recent studies have even shown that the actual number is growing, owing to a rising public desire for less screen time and more activities that keep brains active. A number of research trials have found that regular crossword activity is among the most effective ways to preserve memory and cognitive function, and a recent trial from the NIH found that these benefits can last as long as ten years.

Treat your brain to a satisfyingly fun daily workout by picking up this crossword book for $17.

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Author Clock was an idea we simply couldn’t shake, so we had to build it. A teleportation device powered by literature from every corner of the Earth. And fairly useful for telling the time too. ️

—Mechanical Design Labs

Literature nerds, say hello to your next major non-book purchase: The Author Clock is a “novel” (get it?) clock that displays the current time through more than 13,000 (and growing) unique literary passages hand-selected from great and diverse works of fiction written around the world over the past seven centuries.

Created by mechanical engineer Jose Cardona, industrial designer Luke Gray, and electrical engineer Max Paulk — and with ongoing quote curation in four languages (English, Spanish, French, and German) by editor Yasmin Sara Gruss — the Author Clock got its start as a Kickstarter project back in fall 2021, where it received more than $1.3 million in backer funding when they were asking for only $20K.

There’s a story snippet for every single minute of the day, and some of those minutes have multiple quotes assigned to them, and more quotes are added all the time via Wi-Fi, so there’s really no end to the variety of what you’ll see.

The clock itself is comprised of a glass e-paper display framed by a bezel of recycled ABS plastic, which is then encased in solid white oak. It also features a base stand and a knurled control knob crown that are both made from polished brass. It’s really a beautiful object.

They have two sizes to choose from — a smaller one (“Vol. 1”) that is readable from an arm’s length away and rests nicely on a desk or nightstand, and a larger one (“Vol. 2”) that can be wall-mounted or placed on a bookshelf and is readable from across a room.

Every bookworm needs one of these clocks, I daresay. The two sizes are priced at $199 and $349 respectively.

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There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from those who’ve lived the longest, and journalist/author David Von Drehle learned that first-hand when he moved to Kansas City and encountered a centenarian neighbor named Charlie who, by all accounts, had lived an extraordinary life and had no intention of slowing down.

The two hit it off right away and a friendship was born, which became the basis for a biography written by Von Drehle titled The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man.

From the book’s description:

Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.

David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is [an] inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.

Although only about 200 pages long, this is one of those books that has so much to teach about how to live and find happiness and meaning even in the face of hardships, mistakes, and tragedy. Don’t go in expecting tips on how to live longer; it’s more about living better, whatever time is left on the clock.

“I came to realize Charlie was not a survivor. He was a thriver. He did not just live. He lived joyfully. He was like a magnet, pulling me across the street and into his confidences, where I discovered something about life’s essentials. The sort of something one wants to pass on to one’s children.”

—David Von Drehle, author

Get the book in these formats:

• Kindle ($4)
• Apple Books ($4)
• Hardcover ($14)
• Paperback ($18)
• Audible audiobook ($14)
• Audio CD ($21)

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Last month, Sam Zien — aka Sam the Cooking Guy of YouTube and restaurant fame — released his latest cookbook, Sam the Cooking Guy and The Holy Grill.

One of the hallmarks of Zien’s “brand,” if you will, is that he makes cooking feel approachable and fun rather than stuffy and pretentious, and if you’ve ever watched his videos, he’s probably made you laugh along the way. There’s something extremely relatable about a decades-long professional cook who still burns himself on hot stuff and curses himself out about it.

In The Holy Grill he brings that same enthusiasm and humor to the topic of outdoor cooking so you can feel more comfortable grilling and smoking your own delicious backyard barbecue.

“We’re gonna kick the fear of grilling right the eff outta you, and answer some important questions along the way.”

—Sam the Cooking Guy

From the book’s description:

Your quest is over–the holy grail of outdoor cooking is here. Unique, charismatic, and a damn fine cook, Sam the Cooking Guy has made perfecting backyard barbecuing his worthy mission. From keeping a chicken breast tender to smoking a turkey, from “dino ribs” to artichokes, these recipes will take your grill game to the next level. Gas versus charcoal? Why is mayo magical? What if a vegetarian is coming for dinner? These questions and more are answered in this indispensable guide to cooking with fire and smoke.

Perfect for beginners and seasoned grill aficionados alike, these 100+ recipes include appetizers, vegetables, chicken (and one duck!), seafood, kebabs, side dishes, and desserts.

As you’d expect from a guide of this ilk, the book covers everything from basic equipment to rubs and sauces to determining meat doneness without cutting into it and beyond. Even total beginners should come out making their caveman ancestors proud by the end.

Get the book in these formats:

• Paperback ($25)
• Kindle ($13)
• Apple Books ($13)

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These days, having a way to entertain yourself in quiet moments without a screen in front of your face is a blessing. In a world inundated with digital distractions, finding solace in the pages of a good book offers a refreshing escape.

Stephanie von Reiswitz’s Murder Most Puzzling provides just that — an intriguing murder mystery that not only engages your mind but also encourages you to put your problem-solving skills to the test.

This elegantly illustrated yet darkly humorous book combines traditional whodunit storytelling with logic puzzles, presenting you with a series of twenty different murder mysteries to solve, all set in the early twentieth century.

It’s all very Agatha Christie, except now you’re the one who gets to do the sleuthing!

From the book’s description:

A body in the topiary garden, a death at a clairvoyants’ convention, and the mysterious accident at the boating lake—prepare for a whirlwind adventure, laced with humor and a dash of the macabre!

Murder Most Puzzling is a gorgeous and witty book that invites readers to solve 20 puzzling murder mysteries. Cast as the faithful sidekick to amateur sleuth Medea Thorne, you will meet a cast of colorful characters, from ghost hunter extraordinaire Augustin Artaud to Leonard Fanshawe, a competitor in the Annual Perfect Pickled Foods Festival.

Using deductive tactics and eye-spy searching skills, you will sleuth your way to unveiling whodunit in this witty riff on the classic murder mystery book.

Murder Most Puzzling offers the perfect blend of suspense and intellectual challenge to help you unwind before bed each night. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through your phone, binge-watching TV shows, or even idly listening to true crime podcasts, retreat into a world of intrique by immersing yourself in the intricacies of this cleverly crafted whodunit.

I recommend the hardcover edition for best results, but Kindle and Apple Books editions are also available and both cost very little.

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Tool enthusiasts looking to fill their shelf and/or coffee table with books in the vein of Gareth Branwyn’s Make: Vol 1 & 2 and Jeff Waldman’s Tools: The Ultimate Guide will want to take a look at Theodore Gray’s Tools: A Visual Exploration of Implements and Devices in the Workshop.

Featuring gorgeously detailed photography by Nick Mann throughout, Tools is a hefty 256-page reference book that “celebrates 118 individual categories of tools found in the home workshop.”

There are 500 individual tools covered across those categories, from everyday implements to not-so-common ones, each annotated with interesting bits of info about that item’s history and what it’s used for, along with the occasional personal story from the author’s perspective.

From the book’s description:

Hand tools and power tools have been a central part of [the author’s] life for as long as he can remember. Using them, collecting them, and appreciating them is as much a part of his DNA as his passion for the periodic table. This book is the story of those tools, from Gray’s personal favorites that have stuck with him through to years, to new and exciting antiques and modern inventions that he’s discovered along the way.

Organized into 118 categories, (and cleverly arranged into a periodic table of tools where each tool in a column shares properties and builds from lightest to heaviest) each tool is featured in a great big beautiful photograph on the left-hand side of the spread. On the right side of the page, Theo regales us with history and personal stories and shows us multiple variations on the theme.

Tools is an unprecedented collection featuring 500 stunning examples of the world’s most wonderful workshop implements. It’s the must-have book for every tool lover.

That last line really says it all. This book is a loving visual tribute to all the tools you may already know and love, as well as the ones you’ll end up dreaming of owning once you’ve read it through.

Get the book in these formats:

• Hardcover ($29) ← recommended
• Kindle ($17)
• Apple Books ($17)

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As a kid, I was a huge fan of the choose-your-own-adventure-style Give Yourself Goosebumps offshoot of the original Goosebumps series. There was just something so fun about exploring all the different ways you could navigate a single story, even if most of the endings were dreadful.

If you’re also intrigued by that idea but aren’t too thrilled about handing your little one a bunch of horror stories, then maybe you’ll find the STEM-friendly Search for a Giant Squid: Pick Your Path more appealing.

Written by Amy Seto Forrester and illustrated by her brother Andy Chou Musser, Search for a Giant Squid is a bit like an educational video game in book form. You take on the role of a teuthologist — a scientist who specifically studies cephalopods, sometimes from the safety of a submersible (alliteration!) — looking for an elusive giant squid in its native habitat: the ocean’s Twilight Zone.

You start by choosing a vehicle, a pilot, and a dive site, and from there you get to navigate your way through an educational deep-sea expedition where every available path leads to a different outcome.

This is one of those books a curious young mind will want to flip through over and over again, choosing different paths each time and always learning something intereseting along the way. It’s also the first of what will apparently be a series, with a second book all about fungi planned for release sometime in 2024.

Get the book in these formats:

• Hardcover ($14) ← recommended
• Kindle ($8)
• Apple Books ($8)

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Looking for a new addition to your collection of coffee books (not to be necessarily confused with coffee table books)? Or have you been needing some fun ways to spice up your coffee-making routine? Then you should check out The New Art of Coffee: From Morning Cup to Caffeine Cocktail.

Written by Ryan Castelaz, owner and creative director of Discourse Coffee Workshop — and with fantastic photography by Kevin J. Miyazaki — The New Art of Coffee offers dozens of imaginative recipes for coffee concoctions that would make Willy Wonka proud if he were into mixology instead of candy.

From the book description:

While the popularity of craft cocktails and home bartending have helped people create their own drink-driven memories, the possibilities for coffee have remained rather tame. Much more than a guide to beans or brewing, The New Art of Coffee shares how to create inspiring concoctions and flavor profiles from comforting and rejuvenating to celebratory and adventurous.

Nearly fifty recipes paired with beautiful photography will inspire and offer something for every taste and time of day—hot, iced, carbonated, post-workout, decaffeinated, alcoholic, and deconstructed. Organized by mood, the recipes range in complexity from a quick quaff to a showstopping slow build, allowing readers to match the drink with the moment.

Enjoy a Moonwater with breakfast, a Throw Em’ A Haymaker after a hard workout, or an Amuse as a happy-hour delight. The Don is the ideal after-dinner companion, and there’s nothing quite like powering down with a Windmill Cookie Steamer after a long day.

You’ll come away from this coffee cocktail book with an entirely different view on what coffee can be. WIth this and The Food Lab on your shelf, you will have all the tools needed to make your kitchen a place of mad science — a sanctum of caffeine-induced wizardry where words like “boring” and “limited” are NEVER uttered.

Get the 208-page hardcover edition for $28 on Amazon. As of this writing (December 17th, 2023) I don’t believe there are Kindle or Apple Books editions available.

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Even if the answers aren’t useful for anything, knowing them is fun. The book you’re holding weighs about as much as the electrons in two dolphins. That information probably isn’t useful for anything, but I hope you enjoy it, anyway.

—Randall Munroe, What If? 2

It somehow slipped my attention that more than a year ago, xkcd creator Randall Munroe published a follow-up edition to his bestselling book, What If?, in which he attempted to seriously answer some of the weirdest questions he’s received from readers using hard scientific data and analysis.

Fully titled What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, this second book is essentially more of the same thing (and there’s nothing wrong with that): answering silly questions with serious science.

From the book description:

The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? Okay, if you insist.

Before you go on a cosmic road trip, feed the residents of New York City to a T. rex, or fill every church with bananas, be sure to consult this practical guide for impractical ideas. Unfazed by absurdity, Munroe consults the latest research on everything from swing-set physics to airliner catapult–design to answer his readers’ questions, clearly and concisely, with illuminating and occasionally terrifying illustrations. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances.

Buy this book and you can look forward to real answers to questions like…

• “What would happen if the Solar System was filled with soup out to Jupiter?”
• “What if you were hanging on a helicopter blade by your hands and then someone turned it on?”
• “Would there be any danger from standing next to a large object that was 0 Kelvin?”
• “What if we somehow evaporated a solid block of iron on earth?”
• “If the universe stopped expanding right now, how long would it take for a human to drive a car all the way to the edge of the universe?”
• “How many pigeons would it require in order to lift the average person and a launch chair to the height of Australia’s Q1 skyscraper?”

…and there are plenty more where that came from! Of course, you can also expect lots of Munroe’s signature stick figure comics along the way to keep things more interesting visually.

Get the book in these formats:

• Kindle ($14)
• Apple Books ($14)
• Hardcover ($16)
• Paperback ($18)
• Audible audiobook ($20)

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“I wonder what would happen if someone crossed Dungeons & Dragons with a Hallmark movie?” is a thought that has never once crossed my mind. At least, that was the case before I heard of Travis Baldree’s 2022 novel, Legends & Lattes.

In this widely loved addition to the increasingly popular ‘cozy fantasy’ genre, we follow the opening of (what else) a coffee shop by an unlikely individual: a battle-hardened orc barbarian named Viv who longs to retire from her days of adventuring and finally realize her dream of reinventing herself and building a peaceful existence.

One of the first problems she faces? No one else in the city has the slightest clue what “coffee” is. From the book description:

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.

However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.

A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.

Legends & Lattes is high fantasy with low stakes, and in place of epic battles and dark twists, you instead get a lot of wholesome friendship building and the tiny slice-of-life moments that all business creators can relate to — not to mention enough descriptions of delectable pastries to throw anyone off their diet.

Get the book in these formats:

• Kindle ($13)
• Apple Books ($13)
• Hardcover ($27)
• Paperback ($9)
• Audible audiobook ($15)

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Somehow I missed the fact that during lockdown in 2020, a time when everyone was suddenly taking up a baking hobby and everything was a bit weird besides, a cookbook was published that specifically focused on baking desserts with Toblerone chocolate bars.

That’s right, The Toblerone Cookbook features 40 foolproof recipes that make use of different varieties of that iconic triangular Swiss-made candy bar — milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and fruit & nut — to create delectable treats like chocolate truffles, various cheesecakes, brownies, chocolate fudge mug cake, Rocky Road, and more.

Is it a candy advertisement disguised as a strangely niche cookbook? Maybe. Would I eat every single dessert printed in it? You betcha.

Get the book in these formats:

• Hardcover ($16)
• Kindle ($3)
• Apple Books ($3)

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