It is uncertain what readership Ken Kawasumi envisioned for his book Sushi Art Cookbook. Professional sushi chefs or advanced home cooks? He states that his creations have “intricate details that require particular techniques.” Home cooks proficient in making sushi rolls with ease may attempt some of Kawasumi’s beautiful rolls, but they should be warned that they need to be artistic and allow plenty of time to create one of the recipes. Not many sushi chefs would benefit from this cookbook as even for professionals, these techniques are quite time consuming–something few sushi restaurants are able to afford.

There are several cookbooks available today, but this one distinguishes itself by focusing on health and leveraging models to share their stories and eating habits. The result is a book of recipes, arranged by a model, and a mélange of diet fads in vogue today. The book starts with a discussion on healthy foods, focusing on fresh and healthy choices. It asserts that once the focus is on health, the need to limit carbs, count calories, or other such activity is not needed. After that come the recipes, about ten for each model.

You open the first page and up pops a picture of a folded hamburger like in children’s pop-up books. That’s your first clue that you are dealing with a highly unusual production of a cookbook in Burger Lab. In fact, it’s an awesome book by the restaurateur Daniel Wilson. Illustrations, mainly uniquely styled photos but also sketches, are so remarkable that this book should be on display to be admired. The text and recipes are equal matches in excellence.

If you would like to have a book about Southern Italy, but you have trouble deciding if you would like a history book or a book of beautiful photographs, or maybe a book that discusses cultural geography, but you’d also like to have a cookbook, this is the book for you. Author Katie Parla has managed to put together a most delightful book that combines all of the above into one gorgeous book filled with 85 mouth-watering recipes.

Presenting one hundred pasta recipes in Healthy Pasta, this book give you no shortage of recipes to your liking and within your budget. Most of the ingredients are readily available in any grocery store, but not so with the pasta choices. You will be scratching your head for some ingredients (ricotta salata for grating, Sicilian oregano on the stalk). A good Italian grocery store is a must to find many of pasta shapes, such as bucatini, cavatappi, or mezze rigatoni, and authors J. Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali give no substitutes.

Jocelyn Brubaker has had a life-long love affair with baking. Through the years, that developed into an overwhelming love for cheesecake. She decided she would find ways to incorporate cheesecake into many different desserts. She was kind enough to put together over 75 of her favorite recipes into a very beautiful book with plenty of helpful extras in it. Brubaker has an introduction to her cooking and blogging life, then an overview of the equipment one should have to make all these wonderful recipes, a section on basic baking tips, and a series of recipes for basics such as brownies, pie crust, lemon curd, and caramel dip or topping, which is YUM! Sections with 12 cheesecake and 9 no-bake cheesecake recipes follow. Don’t miss the Caramel Pecan Cheesecake.

Simple Cake by Odette Williams is a pretty simple cookbook. It consists of nine basic cake recipes as well as a recipe for meringue. You can easily change up the variations by adding different toppings or frostings to the cake. I made “Williams’ Chocolatey Chocolate Cake” with the added variation of the coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor. I also made the cherry compote and served it on the side of the cake. The recipe was very straightforward and easy to follow.

For vegans who enjoy the convenience of Instant Pot, The Essential Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook is an excellent choice. But instant it is not. This kitchen appliance, a programable electric pressure cooker is a modern version of the stove-top variety. To bring it to pressure, you wait for five to fifteen minutes then at the end of cooking a similar waiting time until it naturally releases the pressure.

If one is looking for a cookbook with many delicious and exotic recipes, one will not be disappointed in buying this book, but it is so much more than that. This is also something of a travel book, a history book, and a social commentary wrapped around an exceptionally interesting cookbook. Author Yasmin Khan traveled to many Palestinian communities and visited the kitchens of several Palestinian people.

Author Simon Thibault has written a superb volume, Pantry and Palate. He documented the foods and culture of a small area of Atlantic Canada, the Acadian — which includes Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island — but he focused particularly on a small area of southwestern Nova Scotia with a large Acadian rural population. His research concentrated on old Acadian recipes from cookbooks and family recipes but also from memories of the foods he ate during his years growing up in that area.