You will ruin cocktail parties with your knowledge of wood.

Chang Sun-Young will make you a Korean grandmother. This book replaced my much-cherished bulgogi recipe.

The cover art is questionable but the recipes are fun and interesting. I'd love a book that's 100% root beer recipes, but that's not gonna happen.

It's the best hobby. Fallen trees become a goldmine.

Kind of a disappointment! Lots of things to do with logs, though.

Two diverse and game-changing books (along with On Photography) about art and photography. 

If you don't feel like reading Luca Turin's book about scent you might as well read Chandler Burr's book about him.

Pictures of wood. Radial, horizontal, and vertical cuts of wood. That's about it.

It might sound weird, but if you raise your eyebrows, I will say to you: it is stunning.

Douglas Hofstadter's classic take on mathematics, art, and knowledge. The publisher says it's "in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" and I'm one to agree.

"How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science" was such a good subtitle I bought this one in hardcover.

David Wondrich has returned to fill us all in on the most social of drinks. After reading it you'll demand your friends come over for a bowl or two.

Everything ever about meat. This book is a blessing for the carnivore inside of you.

It's a great retrospective on the past 30 years of hacking, sure, but the fun part is all of the now-archaic technology. 2400 baud modems! Payphones!

This book taught me how to synthesize methyl salicylate from aspirin, which I then used to make a slightly poisonous wintergreen flavoring.

A great social history of the soda fountain.