Since its first private printing in 1931, "The Joy of Cooking" has been teaching Americans how to cook. Craig Claiborne calls it "a masterpiece of clarity" and Julia Child says it's the one book she'd keep if she could only have one English title on the shelf. The nearly 5,000 recipes are handily organized by meal and ingredient, and no cooking instruction goes unexplained, so you can "finally" understand the difference between poaching and braising. The book includes nutritional information as well as an extremely helpful list of measures and equivalents. You'll find a version of every recipe your mother ever cooked, along with straightforward instructions for cooking more exotic specialties such as turtles and muskrats.