A collection of excellent cookbooks that I highly recommend, both as a chef instructor and home cook. I've cobbled this list together based on my decade+ living and breathing the culinary/food media industry. 

With well-written recipes and packed full of inspiration, these "shelves" represent everything I love about cookbooks. They tell the stories of food and people who make it, while teaching the reader how to recreate specific dishes, expand their pantries, and become more confident with improvising.