Lifestyle-related content experienced a huge surge in interest during the pandemic, as people learned new hobbies and skills as a strategy for coping during the height of COVID. However, life and style topics continue to be quite popular among consumers, even as the pandemic recedes as a public health emergency.
Lifestyle-related content experienced a huge surge in interest during the pandemic, as people learned new hobbies and skills as a strategy for coping during the height of COVID. However, book sales data reveal that titles on cooking, gardening, crafting, home improvement, self-help, and other life and style topics continue to be quite popular among consumers, even as the pandemic recedes as a public health emergency.
According to Amazon’s Bestseller Chart, at least six of the top 10 nonfiction categories as of March 2023 can be broadly categorized as lifestyle related. Cooking is the third largest selling category overall, and others in the top 10 include Art and Photography (No. 4), Self-Help and Personal Development (No. 5), Motivational/Inspirational (No. 6), Health and Fitness (No. 7), and Crafts, Hobbies, and Home (No. 9).
Cookbooks are always popular, says Annie Mazes, associate director of academic and library marketing for Workman Publishing—and cookbooks that intersect with trends such as health, wellness, and social responsibility by helping readers adopt a healthier, more plant-forward lifestyle are especially popular today.
Publishers are also seeing a lot of interest in parenting guides, as parents look for advice in helping their children through a growing mental health crisis in the wake of the pandemic.
“Anything that can help parents move forward in this strange world we find ourselves in is a welcome development,” Mazes says.
Here are some notable lifestyle-related titles for 2023.
Craft & Hobby
Craft & Hobby (www.craftandhobby.com) is a new online community built specifically for libraries and their users. When libraries pay an annual subscription fee based on their digital circulation, all of their members receive free, unlimited access to video tutorials and classes spanning 20 different creative areas—from painting and cake decorating to fitness, sewing, and outdoor photography.
With Craft & Hobby, library patrons can unlock their creative potential and learn new skills and hobbies at their own pace through step-by-step video guides. Instruction ranges from a three-minute tutorial on camera shooting modes for beginners, to a 30-minute class on how to paint different types of clouds, to a five-hour class on quilt making.
“This is a nice addition to a library’s resources,” says Director of Business Development Josephine Kizer. “There’s something very fulfilling about taking a class at your own leisure and coming out with an end product.”
Designed to be easy to use, the website is launching in spring 2023 with more than 1,500 hours of video content aimed at all skill levels. Users can filter their search results to see full classes, only shorter videos, or both. Full courses include downloadable PDF guides featuring materials lists, patterns, recipes, and additional resources.
Craft & Hobby is produced by TN Marketing in Minnesota, a global video streaming service focused on “creating and cultivating communities by engaging people with their passions.” TN Marketing offers a similar website for consumers, called Craftsy, which has been in existence for more than a decade and has more than 100,000 subscribers.
“We’ve had so much success from the consumer side, and we wanted to offer a version specifically for libraries as well,” Kizer says.
All of the video content is produced by TN Marketing itself, using experts in their creative fields. For instance, woodworking expert Kyle Kwiatkowski, owner of Denver-based furniture-making company The Cabinet Face, teaches a 90-minute course on creating custom built-in shelving.
Kwiatkowski, who has 15 years of teaching experience at a local community college, takes viewers through the entire construction process, from planning their design and determining a materials and cut list to assembling and installing the pieces. The course is broken into short, easily digestible sections, each about 15 minutes long.
In another example from the site, nutritionist and food writer Robin Miller, author of the New York Times bestseller Quick Fix Meals, teams up with her friend Katie Workman to teach an hour-long video course called “Real-Life Cooking.” In this course, Miller and Workman tackle common kitchen conundrums such as what to do with leftovers, what to make for a bake sale, and how to shake up the tired “chicken dinner” routine with simple solutions that work despite busy schedules.
Aside from giving patrons an easy way to learn new skills and hobbies from home, Craft & Hobby also makes a great addition to a library’s makerspace programming, Kizer says.
“Makerspace programs can be expensive to produce from a talent standpoint,” she notes, adding that it can be challenging to find and recruit local instructors to run makerspace programming. With a subscription to Craft & Hobby, libraries have access to step-by-step instruction for hundreds of projects that can be shown within makerspaces to guide group crafting activities.
Workman Publishing
Part of Hachette Book Group, Workman Publishing produces award-winning cookbooks, parenting and pregnancy guides, and books on gardening, country living, and humor, as well as children’s books, gift books, and fiction. The company has six imprints.
“Lifestyle is a big part of what we do,” says Annie Mazes, associate director of academic and library marketing. “We’re always finding relevant subjects that people want to learn about.”
Cook Color by Maria Zizka, May 2023, ISBN 9781579659950, is a unique cookbook that focuses on the intersection of color theory and cooking science by exploring how what we see visually influences what we eat. The book also includes more than 100 recipes featuring fresh fruits and vegetables and other easy-to-find, nutritional ingredients. “It’s laid out in a beautiful, monochromatic way,” Mazes says. “Visually, I think people will really be drawn to it.”
In The Garden Maker’s Book of Wonder, August 2023, ISBN 9781635865318, popular gardening influencer Allison Vallin Kostovick—whose organic gardening website is called Finch + Folly—shares advice on connecting with nature through wildflower gardening, cooking, and crafting, with activities such as planting a playground for pollinators and building a rustic trellis from tree branches. “It’s a really lovely reference book for how to make your life more beautiful,” Mazes says.
In a complex and unpredictable world, resilience is an important trait for children to learn. In The Parent’s Playbook: Simple, Science-Based Strategies for Raising an Emotionally Healthy and Resilient Child by Catherine McCarthy, Heather Tedesco, and Jennifer Weaver, September 2023, ISBN 9781523518593, three mental health professionals provide sound, practical advice for raising children who will thrive in both good times and bad.
What We Sow by Jennifer Jewell, October 2023, ISBN 9781643261072, explores the personal, ecological, and cultural significance of seeds. An award-winning horticultural journalist, Jewell turns on their heads popular notions of where “organic” seeds are grown and sourced, reveals how giant multinational corporations have patented the genomes of seeds we rely on for staples like corn and soy, and highlights the efforts of activists working to regain legal access to heirloom seeds that were stolen from Indigenous peoples.
The Quarto Group
Founded in 1976, the Quarto Group is a leading global publisher of illustrated books. Quarto publishes as many as 1,200 books a year through more than 30 imprints based in the U.S. and the U.K., primarily nonfiction works for adults and children. Lifestyle is a key area of focus of the company’s publishing program.
A Gardener’s Guide to Botany by Scott Zona, December 2022, ISBN 9780760374450, explores the biology behind common plants, how they function, and what they need to grow. Dr. Zona is a botanist, researcher, and educator who served as curator of the Wertheim Conservatory and Greenhouses at Florida International University. He has written this book in layman’s terms to make it very simple to understand, so that beginning gardeners and experts alike can grasp the science behind their plants and what their gardens need to thrive.
Flower Philosophy by Anna Potter, February 2023, ISBN 9780711268579, advises readers on how to create beautiful floral arrangements that express creative freedom. The author is a professional florist, and her philosophy is that flowers themselves aren’t perfect—and their arrangements shouldn’t be, either. The book includes 25 floral-arrangement projects grouped according to season, with prompts that encourage readers to be creative.
“I really love this book, because it’s part inspiration and part crafting,” says Giuliana Caranante, director of marketing and publicity for Quarto. “Plus, the photography is absolutely stunning.”
Healthier Home by Shawna Holman, February 2023, ISBN 978076377604, offers a room-by-room guide to making living spaces less toxic, with simple substitutions that can make a big difference to readers’ health and wellness—like whitening laundry without using bleach and repelling insects without using harmful chemicals. Holman is a teacher, mother, and author of the blog A Little Less Toxic, where she edifies her readers on how they can improve their health through sustainable, realistic lifestyle changes.
365 Gays of the Year by Lewis Laney, May 2023, ISBN 9780711273702, looks at LGBTQ+ history by celebrating one queer icon for every day of the year. The book spotlights well-known LGBTQ+ figures such as singer Freddy Mercury, as well as lesser-known icons such as the Archaic Greek lesbian poet Sappho (c. 630–c. 570 BC). It also profiles LGBTQ+ allies, such as Elizabeth Taylor, who “brought AIDS out of the closet and into the ballroom, where there was money to be raised.”
“This book merges fun and campy content with a really important issue,” Caranante says.
National Geographic Books
National Geographic Books publishes about 40 children’s titles and 24 adult titles per year, including books on travel, nature, and cookbooks that highlight various cultures and cuisines around the world.
“We are America’s No. 1 travel publisher,” says Editorial Director Lisa Thomas. “We also publish a growing number of cookbooks tied into National Geographic themes.”
Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted by Gordon Ramsay, April 2023, ISBN 9781426222702, is a combination cookbook and travelog based on the first three seasons of the celebrity chef’s National Geographic Channel video series of the same name. The book follows Ramsay to 22 destinations around the world, from the rain forests of Peru to the Louisiana bayous. At every location, Ramsay learns to cook from chefs who are native to that area. In addition to exploring its culture and history, the book includes up to five recipes for each destination.
“We’re so excited to have done this book in partnership with Gordon,” says Allyson Johnson, senior editor for travel, food, and lifestyle. “It’s a really fun and engaging package, and the beautiful, on-location photography makes it unique.”
In The Plant Love Kitchen, April 2023, ISBN 9781426222214, registered dietician and author Marisa Moore describes how readers can take a flexible approach to adopting a healthier, more plant-forward diet, complete with 75 recipes. Moore’s approach, which Johnson describes as “flexitarian,” is a highly accessible way for anyone to become more plant-forward in their diet, without necessarily giving up meat.
“Marisa is a rising star,” Johnson says. “She describes how to adjust your lifestyle to make plants become the star of the dish. She brings a lot of flavors and finds creative ways to elevate plants in your cooking.”
One of National Geographic Book’s bestsellers is The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100 by Dan Buettner. The book explores the diets from cultures that have yielded the longest-living people, statistically speaking, and explains how their diets have enabled these populations to avoid chronic diseases. In a follow-up to this work, The Blue Zones American Kitchen, December 2022, ISBN 9781426222474, Buettner interviews more than 50 food experts, chefs, and cooks across America to uncover Blue Zone cooking right here in the U.S.
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