Style: Glorious Food Books

For the first time in years, there's reason to celebrate the food books of fall. The mindless (and presumably profitless) trend of chef's ego books has slackened in favor of more thoughtful reads. Finest among them (besides "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook," previously praised in these pages) is Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen ( Artisan. $45 ). Richard's Citronelle, in Washington, D.C., is quite simply one of the best restaurants in America. You can watch him through the kitchen window: busy, mischievous, always up to something. So's the book, which reveals his methods in a charming, personal voice; a lifetime of wisdom in a big, beautiful package you'll actually use.

Nigel Slater, a lovely writer and one of England's most endearing home cooks, chronicles his culinary year in The Kitchen Diaries ( Gotham. $40 ). It's so much more than what to make for dinner tonight, but it's that as well. If you've ever wondered why you feel at home in some restaurants, out-of-sorts in others, Danny Meyer has, too. Been obsessed, in fact. Now, in Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business ( HarperCollins. $25.95 ), Meyer candidly reveals the personal journey and hard-won truths that have made him successful not only at his restaurants (New York's Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, The Modern) but with the people who work there, too.

A superb example of the happy new trend of food memoirs is Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees ( Knopf. $25 ), which traces the formation of this culinary icon and actress through her childhood in India, complete with family recipes. If it has ever occurred to you, as it has to me lately, how the food of some superstar French and Spanish chefs leads right back to the Japanese tradition of exquisite little plates called kaiseki , this book confirms that idea. Preparing the food beautifully photographed in the lush Kaiseki ( Kodansha. $45 ) by Kyoto restaurateur Yoshihiro Murata is almost beside the point; understanding, and salivating, is.

Marcus Samuelsson, the three-star chef of New York's Aquavit, was born in Ethiopia, then adopted and raised in Sweden. He writes a book from the heart: The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa ( Wiley. $40 ), that explores local ingredients and cooking methods as inspiration for American cooks. Seems like the Joy of Cooking ( Simon & Schuster. $30 ) in this, its 75th-anniversary edition, has had an attitude adjustment. Turns out the trendifying of the 1997 revise removed too many of its best-loved features (brunch, lunch and supper, jellies and preserves, quick tuna casserole). Now they're back. Whew!

One Spice, Two Spice ( Morrow. $34.95 ) is not just another Indian cookbook. Floyd Cardoz of the restaurant Tabla in New York is first a classically trained chef, and second a dad who cooks with his young sons, patiently showing them--and us--confidence with Indian spices in carefully crafted recipes.

Some years ago I chided the chef Charlie Palmer for producing a cookbook way too complicated for a home cook to master, so now I heartily applaud Charlie Palmer's Practical Guide to the New American Kitchen ( Melcher. $35 ), which rocks. Most cookbooks for kids are either too dopey or too dutiful, but Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook ( Random House. $16.95 ) is not only true to the Dr. Seuss, um, oeuvre, but with Georgeanne Brennan's healthy recipes, culinarily solid.