Amazon.com (ISBN 0471387916, Hardcover)

There are thousands of cookie recipes out there already, and probably hundreds of cookie recipe books. What makes The Good Cookie different, and worth making room for, is Tish Boyle. Food editor of the magazines Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Design, Boyle uses her experience as a pastry chef to update, improve, and choose between all those thousands of recipes for classic and best-loved cookies. She also includes recipes contributed by other excellent pastry chefs she's met, and for the remainder she relies on her own creative genius.

With over 250 recipes to choose from, Boyle makes the task much easier with mouth-watering introductions that describe in detail the appearance, texture, and taste of every cookie. The chapters are organized by technique, but the recipes are reorganized in an ingenious index by occasion or use: Ship Well, For Grown-Ups, Over-the-Top Chocolate, Bake Sale Bonanza, and the like. You'll find favorites such as Russian Tea Cakes, Lattice-Topped Linzer Bars, and Hermits, and crowd pleasers like Citrus Sandwiches and Blueberry Crumble Bars. Contributions from others include Chocolate Cranberry Spice Cookies, Ginger Fortune Cookies, and Midnight Brownies (made with Midnight Milky Way bars!). But what makes The Good Cookie priceless are the gems such as the crispy, chewy Tangerine Kumquat Rounds, explosive with citrus flavor, and Boyle's clear, detailed instructions that ensure their success. --Leora Y. Bloom