Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books.

These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed! I'm sure there are lots of great books that I haven't heard of. I wanted to link to a bookshop, but I got stuck with that so I used Wordery, unless they didn't have it in which case I link to Amazon. Some of these books have hardback and soft-cover versions, or newer editions, so go careful with the links because I just link to any version of the book. I have done no research at all into the authors or illustrators here, so if I've included people who are toxic arseholes please do let me know and I'll fix it. (This post is episode 2 of "DanBC goes down a rabbit hole and dumps the results onto Tildes").

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking - Samin Nosrat and Wendy MacNaughton.

A review from Kitchn: 8 cooks on why "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is such a special, unlikely, hit

A lot of people love this book. Beginners say it gave them a bit more confidence, and good home cooks say it helped elevate their cooking by giving them usable information.

How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman.

A review from Kitchn

How to Cook Everything - the basics - Mark Bittman. A review from ShelfAwareness.

A lot of people don't know how to cook, and have never cooked anything. Mark Bittman's books are often recommended to this group of people. And the books are excellent sources of information, and so they're useful to lots of people. They're very clear and easy to use.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan.

A VERY SHORT, almost bullet point, review from FiveBooks And a longer review from LitHub

She wrote two books in the 1970s, and these were combined and updated in the 1990s for this book. These books are widely credited as introducing people outside Italy to "authentic" Italian cooking. LitHub review has already said everything that I'd want to say about this, but better than I could.

On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen - Harold McGee.

A Kitchn review

This is a heavy duty book about the science of food. It's often described as the best single reference book for the science of food and cooking.

Food Lab: Better home cooking through science - J. Kenji López-Alt.

A review from Chemistry World

Surely everyone knows J. Kenji. He's really approachable. He give you science, but it's actionable and achievable.

In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean - Hawa Hassan, Julia Turshen.

A mini-review from Kitchn. So, I'm cheating here because I haven't seen this recommended by anyone but I wanted more books that are not Euro-US focussed. This book focuses on food from Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros

Each chapter starts with a short geo-political intro. You'll be familiar if you've ever read the CIA World Factbook. It then has a short interview with a grandmother, and then it gives some recipes.

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making - Wordery link - James Peterson.

A review from MostlyFood

"Don’t be put off by the size of this book. It’s true that it’s as big as a small piece of furniture but it’s as big as that for a good reason. There isn’t any padding in Sauces. It’s cover-to-cover solid information that will be welcomed by anyone wanting to perfect sauce-making. Nothing seems to be omitted or overlooked. Every imaginable sauce is described, including Asian Sauces which have been added since the publication of the first edition."

Lots of people like that "no padding" feature.

How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food - Nigella Lawson.

A review by Food 52

"Thinking back on the lifespan of this formative book, I can’t help but feel that it’s to the recipes in it, and of course to Lawson herself, that I owe much of my confidence in the kitchen today."

Lots of people just want to cook tasty food and they're not bothered by The Science. Lawson's books are excellent if you want great home cooking.

The Professional Chef - The Culinary Institute of America

There are lots of versions of this book. The current version will be expensive. The older version are usually very similar and will be much cheaper.

Home cooks often get into weird habits and that's fine - it's your kitchen, do what works for you. But if you want to get better in the kitchen by improving your techniques and skills this is the book for you.

I think the most interesting and individual suggestions come not from someone's absolute favorite book, but from the contenders, the runners up. These are more likely to reflect a niche interest or unique perspective imho. Anyway, if you are willing, please name some of your best lifetime book experiences.

Reddit refugee here, I've been posting my book reviews on /r/Fantasy for years and figured some of you all would be interested in a best of list. My full list of all book reviews can be found here, but most of the links are broken right now because the Fantasy subreddit is still private. Still, perhaps the titles, authors and keywords are helpful.

What I enjoy

A brief list of things I care about in books, to help you jugde whether your taste overlaps:

• a good balance of romance and plot, where there is prominent romance but never feels like the story is just about that
• quality prose and dialogue
• believable relationship development, including romantic tension and explicit payoff for it
• high stakes drama, be it interpersonal, warfare, duels, court politics or heists
• LBGTQ+ main characters and queer romance

Note that these aren't the only qualities of the books listed below, just generally what I look for. I'll also gladly take recommendations for fantasy books that fit these criteria if you have any!

Books

Kushiel's Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

A divinely blessed masochistic courtesan and spy uncovers conspiracies against the crown of fantasy France. This series is probably my absolute favorite for how it combines intrigue, romance, kink and action, all with excellent prose and characterization. It has deliciously horny worldbuilding and ends up telling an epic fantasy story with an incredibly unique protagonist.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

A recent addition to my absolute favorites. The author described the book as "vampire couple finds himbo in the trash and takes him in". If you're not sold on that, imagine a vibe like Netflix Castlevania and The Witcher - vampire hunter who's highly competent but looked down upon, vampire science, undead threat, dark gothic kind of setting, sprinkled with some "who's the real monster actually?" philosophy.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

A Dowry of Blood is about healing from abusive relationships through murder. It's also walks an excellent line between being sexy and horrible. It tells the story of Dracula's "brides", and the beautifully messed up relationship the four of them have.

Note: this one can't be described as having a "romantic subplot", since that implies some sort of happy ending. You know, because of the murder. (that's not a spoiler, it's revealed on page one)

A Charm of Magpies by KJ Charles

A disgraced nobleman returns to England years after escaping his father and finds himself and his family estate haunted. He hires a magician - who happens to bear his family a grudge. The Magpie series is fast paced, highly entertaining, well written, and plays with some delicious power dynamics between its initially hostile and soon reluctantly mutually attracted main characters.

Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The only YA series on this list, Folk of the Air holds a special place in my heart for its delicious fairy court politicking and for not pulling its punches. The titular Cruel Prince is a wonderfully hateable love interest, and even though I feel a few years too old to properly enjoy this series, the stabby and vicious dynamics between the two leads is just wonderful.

Nightrunner by Lynn Flewelling

A young man gets innocently imprisoned and receives unexpected help from his cellmate: a spy, rogue, thief and nobleman. The latter offers him a way out and an apprenticeship, which leads to well... spying and thievery, but also sinister necromantic plots against the throne. The highlight of this series is the ongoing relationship development between its leads. Book 1-2 are fantastic, book 4-5 are really weird, but the whole series remains a favorite despite some strange choices.

Rook & Rose by M.a. Carrick

A skilled con artist, a masked vigilante that challenges aristocrats to duels, and a dashing crime lord turned nobleman. The Rook & Rose series shines in its rich worldbuilding and prose, but especially in its handling of its main characters' multiple secrets, cons and identities. And especially shines when those schemes start crumbling down and some of the secrets become unveiled.

If the third book in the trilogy sticks the landing later this year, this series will firmly establish itself among my all time favorites.

The Stariel Quartet by AJ Lancaster

Years after leaving her family, a young woman returns home for her father's funeral and soon needs to deal with a magical estate that has a mind of its own, and discover that there may be more magic in the world around her than she's realized. The Stariel series is cozy and home-y in many ways, but doesn't shy away from tension either, and I find myself still in love with the main characters even long after finishing the series. I also really enjoyed the spinoff, A Rake of His Own recently!

Harrow Faire by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

Most of the books on here are fantasy with romance, while this one sits more firmly in the capital R Romance genre. But it is dark romance ("villain gets the girl"), and features an absolutely unhinged love interest, a lot of murder, and an evil circus. The series isn't without flaws (some of the side characters get a bit too much page for
how flat they are, and the pacing is a tiny bit uneven in parts), but I blasted through all five (short) books in a week because I had so much fun with it.

The Last Binding by Freya Marske

This series takes place in an early 20th century England where a secret magical society exists in parallel to the world 'as we know it'. There's even a bit of magical British bureaucracy that reminded me of aspects of the Harry Potter books, though the series have little in common otherwise.
Every book in this trilogy follows the same overarching plot, but features a different pairing of main characters and romantic leads. It's queer, fun and fast-paced, though sometimes a bit on the fluffy and romancey side for my taste.

That's just a brief selection of favorites, I highly recommend heading over to the reddit post (I should back that up at some point with Reddit's future being a bit shaky rn) to find more titles.

Thank you for reading! There's lots more to say on each of theses books of course, but I didn't want this to get way too long.
Let me know if you found this interesting, if you have similar books you'd recommend to me, or just share if you also enjoyed any of these books. This is my first post on Tildes and I'm happy to meet new fellow readers :)

I finally have the space to finish a project I've been working on which is a study with 3 bookcases. So far, my idea is to have 1 with books that will always be there, such as classic reads, or even an encyclopedia maybe?, or other reference material. Basically, a permanent bookcase whether or not I've read the material. The other two will be rotated in and out of stuff that I'm reading, have read recently or on my backlog before swapping or donating.

Anyways, what's in your "must have" bookcase? Reference, fiction/non-fiction, Calvin & Hobbes even! (Although that's more of a coffee table piece)

Do we have a list of recurring discussions and their schedules anywhere? I know they're generally weekly, but I often find myself having to do a quick search for when the last one was and determine whether or not I should hold onto my contribution to that thread until the next one occurs. eg if the new discussion is created tomorrow, I may as well just post my comments tomorrow rather than today. Admittedly a very minor inconvenience.

Having a list somewhere easy to see could also help prevent folks from unintentionally creating duplicate discussions during the period between one week's discussion going quiet and the next week's starting.

And maybe eventually it could be something like we subscribe to a recurring discussion and then it shows up in the sidebar somewhere in a list of upcoming discussions? Just spitballing here.

Any thoughts?