Lidia’s Mastering The Art of Italian Cuisine by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali (Random House, 2015)

Mother-daughter team Bastianich offer 480 pages of seasoned advice about cooking the Italian way, with an emphasis on fresh ingredients and precise techniques. There are no pictures but a lot of useful words, including an extensive section on ingredients and 400-odd recipes for classics like

and more inventive dishes, such as gnocchi made with bread and prunes, and beet ravioli with a poppy seed sauce.