good books to buy?

[SunWukong]

I want to get cooking books for bread, Italian and Chinese and Thai cooking, can anyone recommend some, looking at amazon all the top rated ones are linked to tv shows so not sure if i trust them to be the best really.

I really like the River Cottage Bread book - it's not the prettiest but it's really robust and actually explains what's going on.

Italian - This one is our favourite. I reckon it deserves a higher rating. Again - not much in the way of pretty photos but I've yet to have a bad meal!

For breads I recommend the dan lepard short and sweet, and the Baker Brothers book. I have made dan lepards easy white bread lots and it's great.

Me too! Want to buy my 13 year old a bread cook book. Ideas please (and sorry for hijacking :))

I like Claudia Roden's Food of Italy. Her Food of Spain looks good too.

Anything by Dan Lepard for bread. Italian - silver spoon is good. Can't go wrong with claudia roden's books.