Feature Image Credit: @thesportslibrarian

It is never too late to learn and start something new. Sometimes finding new hobbies and learning new skills is hard and time-consuming—but it can also be very fun and totally mind-blowing. Whether it’s taking up origami, or learning about astrophysics, or becoming a pilot, we are helping you out with a list of books that will help you learn a new skill or hobby—or just be super fun to have around at trivia night!

Origami 365 by Taro Yaguchi

The experts at Taro’s Origami Studio in Brooklyn, New York, are here to teach you the basics of origami. Taro Yaguchi, the founder of the studio, takes you step-by-step through his system and even color-codes it for an extra step of learning and fun. There are 12 models to learn from and 365 pieces of beautifully designed origami papers included. Get your craft on by yourself or with friends.

Investing QuickStart Guide by Ted D. Snow

Whether you are a newcomer or a veteran to investing, Ted Snow is giving a fresh and easy perspective to investing for success. Bringing the wisdom of 30+ years in the finance industry to bear, along with his MBA, Snow’s intrepid but practical asset-allocation investment philosophy is masterfully communicated and highly appropriate for market newcomers. Invest smart and easy with this comprehensive guide to the power of wealth.

How to Start A Successful Nonprofit by Niaja Farve

Want to find ways to help out a group that is in need or has a special place in your heart? The steps here outline the small actions we can take to make that difference and starting a nonprofit. While charitable donations are at an all-time high, obtaining these funds is still hard and complicated. Farve will help you start and provide the skills and resources to ensure that your nonprofit lives past the first year and you create the good in the world you want to see.

The Beginner’s Guide To Cheese Making by Elena R. Santogade

Don’t deny it: we all have a soft spot for cheese, and with this guide, it just got easier to have cheese at your very own fingertips – literally and figuratively. This book is filled with advice and recipes to making cheese in your very own home. You can experiment, experience, and become an expert in all the cheeses you want—no background in the cheese world is necessary. Also, there might be some good wine pairing suggestions in there.

Chess Fundamentals by Jose Raul Capablanca

Written with the amateur chess player in mind, Chess Fundamentals equips you with the essential opening, middlegame, and endgame techniques needed to advance your game. Capablanca writes with an ease of understanding that any chess player will grasp, and includes 14 full games annotated by the World Champion himself. A true mountain of knowledge, Chess Fundamentals will take you from just knowing the rules of chess to applying the principles used by the masters.

The Student’s Pilot Flight Manual: From First Flight to Pilot Certificate by William K. Kershner

Have you ever just sat back and thought to yourself, “I want to learn how to fly a plane”? Well, in case you have, this manual is just the thing for you. It’s a must-have for all student pilots and flight instructors, or anyone who might think they want to be a student pilot. It covers all you need to know for your first flight to being prepared for the classroom, tarmac and the cockpit. This textbook also makes sure to include maneuvers and procedures, and even detailed drawings from the author. Spread your wings and fly with this flight manual!

Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh

The end of our days and weeks brings so much chaos and stress into our homes, the places that are supposed to bring comfort and rest. This book helps us restore that balance by giving us step-by-step instructions for setting up a room for sitting, breathing, and walking meditations, and cooking and eating a meal in mindfulness. This is your chance at finally seeing your home as a retreat; a place of serenity.

How to Raise Monarch Butterflies by Carol Pasternak

This detailed guide lets you experience the exciting sight of nature itself with Monarch butterflies. Not only does it explain what threats Monarchs face today, but how you can help conserve the Monarch’s feeding grounds from encroachment with photos and instructions for caring for the beautiful creatures.

How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life by Lilly Singh

Lilly Singh is a real-life Superwoman, and she is giving the world her tips and advice on how she became wildly and successful and insightful. From professional to personal life, Singh hasn’t always been so lucky, but with hard work she shows us we can achieve anything we want, starting with losing the temptation of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Hilarious and bold, Lilly gives us thoughts on how to love ourselves and be happy, the best skill someone can have.

Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide (Eighth Edition) by Dinah L. Moche

Star-gazing is a favorite pastime for people of all ages—but how do you decode them? As a beginner’s guide this book is updated on all the new discoveries of our galaxy and features magnificent images of the night sky, along with resources and an interactive format with learning goals, reviews, self-tests, and answers for fast learning.

How Cycling Can Save the World by Peter Walker

According to Peter Walker, the fate of humanity rests on the bicycle. Cars are comfortable and convenient, but expensive and causing a lot of damage to our world. So what can save the day in the age of advancing technology and impending car crashes? Bikes. Travel through cities and see how cycling has taken root, demonstrating cycling’s proven effect on reducing smog and obesity, and improving quality of life and mental health. After reading this book, you’ll realize that bikes aren’t just hear to save the world, but us as individuals too.

Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste by Bianca Bosker

Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn’t know much about wine–until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, she set out to uncover what drove their obsession, and whether she, too, could become a “cork dork.” With boundless curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Bosker takes the reader inside underground tasting groups, exclusive New York City restaurants, California mass-market wine factories, and even a neuroscientist’s fMRI machine as she attempts to answer the most nagging question of all: what’s the big deal about wine? What she learns will change the way you drink wine–and, perhaps, the way you live–forever.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day. While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls an extremely convincing plea for truth in education. In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should–and could–be taught to American students.

Never Pay the First Bill by Marshall Allen

Every year, millions of Americans are overcharged and underserved while the health care industry makes record profits. We know something is wrong, but the layers of bureaucracy designed to discourage complaints make pushing back seem impossible. At least, this is what the health care power players want you to think. Never Pay the First Bill is the guerilla guide to health care the American people and employers need. Drawing on 15 years of investigating the health care industry, reporter Marshall Allen shows how companies and individuals have managed to force medical providers to play fair, and shows how you can, too. He reveals the industry’s pressure points and how companies and individuals have fought overbilling, price gouging, insurance denials, and more to get the care they deserve. Laying out a practical plan for protecting yourself against the system’s predatory practices, Allen offers the inspiration you need and tried-and-true strategies.

Let’s Make Dumplings! by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan

Ideal for both newbies and seasoned cooks, this comic book cookbook takes a fun approach to a classic treat that is imbued with history across countless regions. There are plenty of recipes, tasty images, and even more colorful options to experience with this cookbook. Make them for yourself, or family-style, and gain a deep connection to dumplings.

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

What is a drug? Why are tea leaves acceptable and a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime—even though both have addictive properties? Michael Pollan takes a look at three plant drugs: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. He explores the cultures that grow up around these particular drugs and thinks about the human attraction to psychoactive plants. Through history and science, this memoir takes experiences and these plants to a whole new perspective in what is fundamental to our human needs and aspirations.

A Beginner’s Guide to Essential Oils by Lisa Butterworth

This is an introduction to the vast world of the curative properties of essential oils, from lavender and lemongrass to sweet orange and sandalwood. A Beginner’s Guide to Essential Oils encourages readers to incorporate their favorite oils into daily life, learning to make their own blends and discovering natural solutions to boost skin and hair health, alleviate anxiety and depression, support digestion, and treat inflammation. Succinct, useful, and easy-to-digest, A Beginner’s Guide to Essential Oilscan help anyone tap into the natural world and cultivate an intuition for healing.

Madhur Jaffrey’s Instantly Indian Cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey

For more than forty years, Madhur Jaffrey has been revered as the “queen of Indian cooking” (Saveur). Here she shares inviting, easy-to-follow recipes–some entirely new, others reworked classics–for preparing fantastic Indian food at home. While these dishes are quick and easy to prepare, they retain all the rich complexity for which Jaffrey’s food has always been known, making this the only Indian cookbook with recipes designed for the Instant Pot you’ll ever need.

How To by Randall Munroe

For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It’s full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. This is the definition of making things difficult for yourself, but it’s kind of fun to think … what if?

A Year of Living Kindly by Donna Cameron

Being kind is something most of us do when it’s easy and when it suits us. Being kind when we don’t feel like it, or when all of our buttons are being pushed, is hard. But that’s also when it’s most needed; that’s when it can defuse anger and even violence, when it can restore civility in our personal and virtual interactions. Kindness has the power to profoundly change our relationships with other people and with ourselves. It can, in fact, change the world. Let’s start creating a better, kinder, safer world.