Prune

Okay, I don't cook much from cookbooks—in fact, I don't cook much at all—so take this with a grain of sea salt, but in a season of gorgeous and appetizing cookbooks, Prune is the one (along with, of course, A Boat, a Whale, and a Walrus) I keep pawing at and paging through. This is not your usual cookbook: there's no introduction or index, and the recipes are presented as—and may well be—the stained, scribbled-on pages from her restaurant binder. Since she's writing to her staff, she assumes they know the basics and have restaurant equipment, which you may not. But as readers of her memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter, know, Hamilton can tell a story and has personality to burn, and in her casual but urgent asides—"TASTE THE LIQUID! KNOW WHERE YOU ARE HEADED!"—you may learn more about the practical craft of cooking (and of running a small business) than you would from a more buttoned-up guide. And for sheer browsing pleasure, it is delicious.