I almost missed out on Flower Philosophy, thinking it just another pretty floral design guide; then I spied a mushroom altar within its pages. A mushroom altar? Curiosity piqued, I discovered florist Anna Potter’s gorgeous writing about the solace of returning to the wild, the gifts that come with close observation and the wisdom of bending our lives further toward the seasons. Potter’s flower-forward project ideas are first-rate, too—there is a sunburst mandala made of dried flowers, leaves and other summer plants that kind of blows my mind—but even if you never clip a section of floral wire, there is such sweetness and beauty to discover in these pages, along with well-chosen quotes from writers and thinkers and stunning photographs by India Hobson.

Floral design books sometimes make me feel left out, because who but a professional has these kinds of materials at their fingertips? But the beauty of this book earned my attention.

Anita Yokota is both a licensed counselor and an interior designer, and she marries the two paths ingeniously in Home Therapy. I’ve seen a lot of “happy home” guides seeking to give readers more serenity through organization hacks and design principles, but none pulls in the teachings of therapy to the degree that Yokota’s book does.

As Yokota writes, “We all attach limiting beliefs to our homes, which could be holding us back from ultimately achieving our goals.” She then goes deep on how to counteract such cognitive distortions through the physical spaces we occupy, and it’s hard not to sit up and pay attention. For example, Yokota suggests creating an “individual domain” in certain rooms to support a personal goal. “Try coming up with some physical cues that will send the right signals to your brain,” she writes. If your goal is to begin your day with exercise, put your yoga mat in sight so your brain knows everything is ready to go; otherwise, design spaces that encourage eating healthy, creating art, wrestling with difficult emotions or anything else you’d like more of in your life.

Not everything here will apply to all homes or families, of course, but I dare you to read this book and not come away with an actionable tip that serves your mental health as well as your house.

As any visitor to my home may note, I’ve long been drawn to the simultaneously bold and delicate look of linocut art, a very hands-on type of relief printmaking wherein ink is transferred to paper via a carved linoleum block. Perhaps it’s time to make a few prints of my own.

U.K.-based artist Sam Marshall’s Linocut makes the process feel approachable, with friendly, precise instructions and projects that build in degrees of complexity. That’s not to say Marshall oversells the ease of this medium. She admits she struggled with it at first and is open about the fact that it’s not unusual to earn a cut or two when you’re starting out—so have Band-Aids on hand! But the act can be meditative once you’ve mastered the feel of the tools, and it’s an art form that can be practiced right at your kitchen table.

Even if I don’t take up a knife and block, the book is a beauty, full of both Marshall’s own prints and those of a few printmakers she admires.

When I was a kid, bubble letters were very on-trend, and I spent hours perfecting my ABCs in bubble form. How I wish I’d had Huyen Dinh’s How to Be a Rule-Breaking Letterer: A Guide to Making Perfectly Imperfect Art back then to goad me into becoming a bona fide word-artist, or at least to nudge me toward further experimentation.

Dinh’s personal story is of the “good girl gets fed up and flees corporate malaise, follows passion” variety (one I’m rather partial to). Now, after years of struggling, she is no longer afraid to make what pleases her. While she neatly breaks down lettering fundamentals—developing your typographic eye, mastering brushstrokes, talking the talk (ascenders and descenders and swashes, oh my!)—her bigger agenda is to encourage free thought, to open up readers to their own preferences and to the wealth of ideas just waiting to be plucked from thin air. She’s quite candid about her own process and clunky first drafts, too, which is always a plus.