One of my very favorite cookbooks ever, this changed my approach to cooking more than any cookbook has. I loaned it to my little sister years ago and she returned it years later stained and wrinkled. It’s a good one.

Pam Anderson grew up watching her parents and grandparents make dinner every night by simply taking the ingredients on hand and cooking them with the techniques they knew. Times have changed. Today we have an overwhelming array of ingredients and a fraction of the cooking time, but Anderson believes the secret to getting dinner on the table lies in the past. After a long day, who has the energy to look up a recipe and search for the right ingredients before ever starting to cook? To make dinner night after night, Anderson believes the first two steps--looking for a recipe, then scrambling for the exact ingredients--must be eliminated. Understanding that most recipes are simply "variations on a theme," she innovatively teaches technique, ultimately eliminating the need for recipes.

If you have little mouths to feed and you want simple, healthy recipes, this will become a bible for you.

Easy, healthy, and fun lunch ideas for every age! Once kids walk out the door for school, all bets are off. Will your son toss the nutritious food you've included and jump right to the treats? Will your daughter trade her sandwich for her best friend's prepackaged meal? Determined to improve what kids eat both at school and on the go, weelicious.com founder Catherine McCord offers innovative solutions for quick, delicious, easy-to-make, kid-friendly lunch box meals that little ones and their older siblings won't be tempted to swap.

Heather is amazing. Beautiful, stylish, and so hilarious. Her recipes are just exquisite and her entertaining style is elegant but doable. I love this book!

Heather Christo, the younger generation’s entertaining doyenne, relates to the challenges facing her busy readers, women who may juggle marriage, family, careers and budgets, but who still wish to host beautiful, unique get-togethers for the people closest to them. Heather has spent a year chronicling the special occasions that season her family’s life—wedding showers, baby showers, holiday celebrations, family birthdays and many wonderful meals shared with people they love—everyday celebrations that many families observe, and which many readers would like to be better prepared for. This is where her experience as a working mom of young children and her expertise as a chef and entertaining expert come together. Generous Table is more than just a cookbook. It is easy to find vast collections of great recipes. But how do you turn them into great meals, great experiences? Especially parties, of any size, where there is always added pressure to be organized, for things to look beautiful, and, of course, for the food to be completely delicious! Generous Table is a kind of “how-to kit” for people who want to be able to throw any type of party in their own home. Containing lists, instructions, menu options, and tons of photographs, it eliminates stress and confusion and removes the intimidation factor of presenting beautiful meals.

This clever book about the ins and outs of marriage was written by my friend, Melanie Shankle, who is truly one of the funniest people I know. Her humor shines through on every page, but is combined with enough real conflict and emotion to make it utterly relatable.

Welcome to the story of a real marriage. Marriage is simultaneously the biggest blessing and the greatest challenge two people can ever take on. It is the joy of knowing there is someone to share in your joys and sorrows, and the challenge of living with someone who thinks its a good idea to hang a giant antelope head on your living room wall. In The Antelope in the Living Room, New York Times best-selling author and blogger Melanie Shankle does for marriage what Sparkly Green Earrings did for motherhoodmakes us laugh out loud and smile through tears as she shares the holy and the hilarity of that magical and mysterious union called marriage.

Jessica Merchant’s recipes are so out-of-this-world mouthwatering and irresistible, you’ll dream about them at night! I love this cookbook, because of her creativity and her crazy love of food. It shows!

The eagerly awaited first cookbook from the wildly popular blog How Sweet Eats Jessica Merchant, creator of the popular food blog How Sweet Eats, has now created her first cookbook, Seriously Delish. Her playfulness jumps off the page in her inventive and incredibly delicious recipes, such as AmarettoButternut Squash Soup with Cinnamon Toast Croutons, Mini Crab Cakes with Sweet Corn and Blueberry Salsa, and Fleur de Sel Caramel Bourbon Brownie Milk Shakes. Her sense of humor, which brings millions of visitors to her site, shows through in chapter titles like Breakfast (. . . for Dinner?) and Salad, Soups, and Vegetable-like Things (Ugh, if We Must). Merchant makes food that people get excited about, nothing run-of-the-mill or expected. As an added bonus, all of the photographs in the book were taken by Merchant herself, giving her cookbook the personal touch that her fans love and newcomers will appreciate. Seriously Delish features imaginative recipes that are tasty and original and bring readers to a place where cooking becomes adventurous and food becomes fun.

I’ve loved this book all my life, of course, but I pulled out my copy again this year and read it to my boys. I couldn’t get through it without tears rolling down my face. It’s a powerful, timeless story of unconditional love that every human being should read. (And yes, I’m crying while writing this!)

Also recommended by: Mark Zuckerberg

The Giving Tree is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein. First published in 1964 by Harper & Row, it has become one of Silverstein's best known titles and has been translated into numerous languages. Despite the recognition that the book has received, it has been described as "one of the most divisive books in children’s literature."