Best Books: Reference, Coffee Table, Art, Crafting, and Brain Games/Activities

I am kinda taking it easy, right this second, as I am recovering from Covid and it’s not been an easy one for me. I have been reading a lot, but I lost the book I am currently reading this morning (?!) and so I somehow wandered to my laptop and started looking for new best books lists. I’m a little odd, like that. So here are some lists of even more types of books that I read and collect. I must be running out of categories, right? I always think so.

With no further ado, here are titles I could find recommended on the internet for best books in the categories home reference, coffee table, art, crafting, and brain-games-slash-activities. Here’s to even more reading!

BEST HOME REFERENCE BOOKS (there are some self-help-y kind of books hidden in here. We’ll winkle them out eventually.)

Wonderbook
Stuff You Should Know
Remarkable Diaries
For the Love of Books
The Book of Unusual Knowledge
Cleaning Plain and Simple
Home Safety Desk Reference
Home Furnishing Techniques
The Household Handbook
New World Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary (compact)
Scrabble Dictionary
Bartlett’s Thesaurus
Encyclopedia Britannica
Atlas of the World, National Geographic
Atlas Obscura ***
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Shakespeare’s Insults
The Elements of Style, Strunk
Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl
On Writing, Stephen King ***
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey
The Holy Bible ***
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carnegie
Getting Things Done, Fallows
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Truss
The Chicago Manual of Style, University of Chicago ***
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman
How to Read a Book, Adler and Doren
Mindset, Dweck
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
On Food and Cooking, McGee
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott ***
One Writing Well, Zinser
The Joy of Cooking, Rombauer
Mythology, Edith Hamilton ***
The Body Keeps the Score, Kolk
A Brief History of Time, Hawking
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
The Qur’an, Muhammed
Quiet, Susan Cain
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
The 4-Hour Workweek, Ferriss
Never Split the Difference, Voss
Pocket Ref, Glover
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
The Power of Now, Tolle
The Emotion Thesauraus
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Associaltion
Just Mercy, Stevenson
How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Roget’s International Thesauraus
Grit, Duckworth
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
A People’s History of the United States, Zinn
Players Handbook: Dungeons and Dragons
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
How to Cook Everything, Bittman
The C Programming Language
1000 Places to See Before You Die
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Gray’s Anatomy
The Associated Press Stylebook
What to Expect When You’re Expecting **
1001 Book You Must Read Before You Die
Salt Fat Acid Heat, Nosrat
The Atlas of Middle Earth
Talking to Stranger, Gladwell
The Sibley Guide to Birds
Don’t Make Me Think, Krug
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Me and White Supremacy
The New Oxford Annotated Bible
Systemic Theology, Grudem
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
The Dictionary of Modern English Usage
Garner’s Modern American Usage
Bulfinch’s Mythology
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julie Child **
Presription for Nutritional Healing ***
A History of Western Philosophy
The Library Book, Sue Orlean
Yale Book of Quotations
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Merck Manual of Medical Information
World Almanac and Book of Facts
Oxford Atlas of the World
The Farmer’s Almanac
The Usborne Geography Encyclopedia
Junior Illustrated Maths Dictionary
Illustrated Dictionary of Maths
A Short History of the World
Illustrated Dictionary of Science
The Usborne Introduction to Art
The Usborne Science Encyclopedia ***
The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History ***
The Story of Inventions
The Story of Exploration
How Things Work
The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions
The History of the World in 100 Pictures
The Usborne Childrens’ Encyclopedia
The Usborne Illustrated English Dictionary
Usborne Illustrated English Thesaurus
Usborne Big Picture Atlas
The Timetables of History, Grun
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
The Dictionary of Drink and Drinking
Dreyer’s English
The Casell Dictionary of Slang
Crosbie’s Dictionary of Puns
Nature Cross-Sections, Orr
Interesting Stories for Curious People
Uncle John’s Greatest Know on Earth Bathroom Reader
What If?, Munro
The Book of Common Prayer
How to Be a Person, Newman
Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen
Get It Together, Soria

ART BOOKS (from coffee-table to craft to history. Maybe it’s too heavy on fashion. I would appreciate really amazing, specific recommendations here and in the coffee table book category):