We’ve teamed up with Jason Lake and Katherine Woehlert at Imprints Booksellers to bring you a reading list for each season, because too many books are still never enough.

From the insightful musings of Alain de Botton to accidental veganism – our curated selection of books this week balances healthy minds and bodies. You are what you read after all!

Art as Therapy

Before he simultaneously cut down everyone’s delusions about romantic love and gave them hope for the reality of their relationships in The Course of Love, Alain de Botton was writing alongside John Armstrong in defense of art’s practical purpose.

Taking an entirely different perspective on the utility of artworks, the pair offer insight into how pieces that might seem inaccessible or irrelevant could actually help us deal with some of life’s struggles – both the daily kind and the eternal kind.

Art as Therapy / Alain de Botton and John Armstrong / Papercover / $24.95 / New release in October 2016

The Australian Spirits Guide

The passion for localism has finally found its way into that stronghold of Australian culture – the bar. In this book, bartender and drinks writer Luke McCarthy gives an exhaustive but entirely practical and absorbing overview of the Australian distillery scene.

Profiling sixty of the country’s best locally made spirits, he also includes interviews with distillers, historical touchstones, tasting notes and price guides. Perhaps most importantly, cocktail recipes from the nation’s best bartenders are proffered, because clearly reading about booze is best done while drinking it.

The Australian Spirits Guide / Luke McCarthy / Hardcover / $39.99 / Available from October

Smith & Daughters: A Cookbook (That Happens to be Vegan)

From the kitchen of lauded Fitzroy restaurant Smith & Daughters, comes a cookbook that aims to make eating vegan about more than chickpeas, chickpeas and more chickpeas.

Known for their rock’n’roll-inspired aesthetic and delightful food, Mo Wyse and Sharon Martinez have translated some of their venue’s magic onto the pages of a book that brings a carnivore’s palate to vegan cooking. With chapters covering everything from mains to drinks, it’s the most comprehensive argument that we have found against cooking meat and three veg again this evening.

Smith & Daughters: A Cookbook (That Happens to be Vegan) / Sharon Martinez and Mo Wyse / Hardcover / $48.00 / Available from November