Daniel Galmiche, Executive Chef at The Vineyard at Stockcross (and Relais & Chateau Rising Chef of the Year 2011) is a chef who knows about flavour. His French Brasserie Cookbook: The Heart of French Home Cooking is his hymn to the eternal verities – a good stock, simple but fresh ingredients, straightforward cooking methods and an honest heart.

There’s nothing worse than coming home to see that your flatmate has been cooking. And that he has dirtied every single piece of kitchen equipment you own in the process. You wonder why he even tried in the first place — you’ve never seen the kid do anything beyond nuking some leftover curry before, so why now? Maybe it’s because he has got himself a copy of Keda Black’s The Illustrated Student Cookbook. Inside are 35 recipes which require limited cooking equipment — a toaster, oven, microwave, and hotplate, and a Survival Kit of essential kitchen tools.

The Free Range Cook reflects the essence of New Zealand life: easy, relaxed, wholesome, fresh, warm-hearted, generous. Getting lost in its 320 pages, and especially its spectacular photos, is the cheapest way to travel there, says Joanna Biddolph not long after visiting New Zealand.

Adding some much needed heat and spice into our dreary, sunless summer, Levi Roots is back with Spice it Up, his fourth cookbook in as many years.

In a world of glossy tomes pandering to chefs’egos, or a quick sale riding on the back of a TV series, Sanjeev Kapoor’s book is a solid piece of work that you’ll soon have covered in foodstains. There’s no higher recommendation than that.

WeightWatchers Cook Smart Vegetarian is a decent vegetarian cookery book, but it is let down by some outdated recipes and dodgy editing.

With a foreword by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, this book was never going to be anything but high camp but the cakes also speak for themselves. Wondrous cupcakes such as Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes with a chilli-flavoured frosting. Summer Flower Cupcakes and Orange and White Chocolate Chip Cookies are just some of the 75 recipes, on glossy black backgrounds, created by Eric Lanlard and designer Patrick Cox.

Homemade booze is all the rage and easy to make. Forget pea pod wine of The Good Life fame and instead put your trust in wine and all round drinks expert, Susy Atkins.

Already respected authors of Middle Eastern cookbooks, the Maloufs saw Persian food as the final key to the cuisine of the area. Food unlocks cultures, brings people together like a common language and often begins and then bedrocks friendships. For them it was to be an eye-opening trip both in taste and experience.

This is a book to take not just on a journey but also to bed. Its comfortable meander through cities and civilisations (even those that bristle with the bustle of the bazaar) brings restful calm and its fabulous photographs (of places and plates) ensure you end your day with the softest images imaginable. You’ll want it by your sofa and in your kitchen, too.