What's your favourite cookery book?

How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittmann, is great - basic without being condescending, and it really does have a recipe for just about everything. If you're an advanced chef then you may want to look elsewhere, but I love it.
The Moosewood Lowfat Cookbook is the one I'm currently using most. I've honestly had a hard time finding any recipes in there that don't sound good to me. Tonight I'm making vegetarian paella.
And for pure reading pleasure, I think it's hard to beat either of the two America's Test Kitchen cookbooks. Do you know their show/magazine (Cook's Illustrated)? It's a dream-hybrid of Consumer Reports, a science experiment, and a cookbook, and all written in elegant, simple prose. The recipes are great and so well-explained that you'll learn a new skill or two - how best to get a perfect glaze on a salmon filet, say - with every one you try.

The New Tapas. I don't cook much but when I do, it's usually Spanish.

Nigel Slater's Real Food

Donna Hay's Off the Shelf is one I've recently been enjoying. Lots of interesting and easy recipes (Hay's focus here seems to be on pan-Asian and pan-Mediterranean-type cuisine) that can be made from ingredients that can be kept on hand in a well-stocked pantry with the addition of a few fresh ingredients. The photography and food styling are gorgeous--which makes it nice to look at. The caramelized bananas with coconut rice were delicious.

When cooking for posh dinner parties, my favourite is Raymond Blanc's "Recipes from Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons" or his "Cooking For Friends" book for slightly less complicated dishes.

For everyday ideas, I've always been really fond of the Australian Women's Weekly series of softback A4 size recipe books. I think I have every single one of them. Lots of interesting ideas, clear instructions and good photos (a must for me).

Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven - because we all need to live to 100 to read all the good books! It's out of green beans and tofu in crunchy thai peanut sauce (doesn't win for recipe title brevity) and cherry upside-down gingerbread.

Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. Wells is a constant favorite, but everything in this cookbook is very easy and very, very good. Worth it especially for the sausage stuffed tomato recipe and the flourless chocolate cake.

I've been reading The Joy Of Cooking lately. I don't really cook but this book does seem useful. Kind of a boring chioce I suppose...

the bittman is a great resource. the two that he did with jean-georges vongerichten are worth getting, especially simple to spectacular which gives you three options for each recipe so you can go as complex as you'd like.
the seduction of rice might be out of print by now, but it's one of my must-haves. that and lawson's how to eat are the books i'm using most frequently these days. for fussy italian, i like mario batali and marcella hazan. the moosewood books are generally good, although i always have to add more seasoning than is indicated.

Food From The Place Below - gorgeous tasty vegetarian recipes without a hint of worthiness despite involving lots of lentils.

Evernight Italian by Guiliano Hazan has yet to let me down. Ditto Bittman, also like his Minimalist Cooks Dinner.

Not to be the one to choose technology over books, but if you go to www.allrecipes.com, there are zillions of recipes. I use it all the time and all you have to do is think about that you have in the fridge at home that's going to go bad if you don't use it soon, type it in ("cucumbers, fennel, sprouts") and wham-o, you get a recipe.

I think this is way easier than choosing a complicated recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook, making a shopping list for it and spending a small fortune on groceries.

You can do no wrong with recipes (at allrecipes) that have a rating of 5 stars based on 50 or more reviews. Just make sure to read the reviews be/c they give to hints on what to watch out for/do.

When cooking from a book, I use Moosewood, The Joy of Cooking (more for technique and general cooking info) and any of those ten dollar cookbooks at Borders that are broken into categories (Mexican, Chicken, Smoothies, Jewish, Baking, etc.)

I think I lost faith in allrecipes.com when I found a recipe for tuna casserole whose entire ingredient list was:

tuna
potato chips
cream of mushroom soup

Yuck. Now I go to epicurious.com.

Has anyone read "Flavor" by Rocco DiSpirito? It evidently did not sell well at all, but I'm smitten. So pretty! Such helpful sidebars! The recipes look so simple and good! I have yet to make anything out of it, as in my waiting for a paycheck stage I live mostly on peanut butter sandwiches. But just for looks alone, I got my money's worth.

No noodles?! Just tuna, potato chips and cream of mushroom? That is yuck. I've gotten a good tuna noodle recipe there, but I punched it up w/some extras. Come to think of it, I hardly ever do their recipes straight; there's always something you can tweak. But, most of the recipes are good jumping off points.

Just wanted to let you know, I started a "I Love Cooking" board. ...

Rad, another board that I can be contrarian on! ;-)