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Each year an astonishing number of cookbooks are published in the United States. Many are quickly forgotten, relegated to the remainder tables in half-price bookstores, while others go on to become culinary classics and virtually never go out of print. Although I have been wrong before, I can usually spot which is which as soon as I see them. What is even more astounding than the sheer number of cookbooks released each season, is how so many of them have something truly unique and satisfying to say. From personal reflections about food and cooking to intricate examinations of the various regional cuisines, there are all manner of cookbooks to be had just as there are all sorts of cooks and readers. This season, a bevy of regionally tinged cookbooks make their debut, exploring the foods of China, southern Italy, Spain, Slovenia and even a global view seen through the eyes of one of America’s foremost retailers in Steven Jenkins’ highly anticipated The Food Life. There are also several books that are as much about the stories they tell as about food and recipes. There are the autobiographical tones to The Seventh Daughter and My Love for Naples, history and tasting notes in The Story of Tea, and Jenkins’ blog-ish sidebars, to name a few.

Speaking of blogs, Clotilde Dusoulier brought her blog to book form last year with Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen (Broadway Books, $18.95). Here is the story of a French girl, transplanted to San Francisco where her culinary epiphany occurred, and back again to Paris where she rediscovered the bounty of Parisian markets and her own kitchen, all well-documented in her English blog, www.chocolateandzucchini.com. I mention this book for two reasons -- one, it is a charming and wonderful book full of recipes for the kind of food for which France is justifiably famous; and two, because it just may well reflect the future of food writing, or any writing for that matter. Fortunately, as Dusoulier points out in her foreword, “a book, the object itself, the weight in your hands, the presence on your bedside table -- has a personality and charm that a Web site can never hope to achieve. It’s hard to take a Web site in the kitchen with you, or curl up with it on the couch, a mug of tea by your side and the cat on your lap. You cannot scribble things in the margin of a Web site, or accidentally smudge a little batter on it, forever marking that recipe as the stupendous cake you made for your sister’s birthday.”

Although one can take the Web site into the kitchen nowadays with one’s I-phone, I sincerely hope there will always be a desire for the tangible, tactile pleasure derived from holding a book, cooking or otherwise, at least in my lifetime. Here then is a look at some of the notable cookbooks that will be hitting the shelves soon, all of which should be on display in your store.

Mollie Katzen’s Recipes: Soups
Thirty years ago, when author, cook and artist Mollie Katzen began taking her hand-lettered and illustrated vegetarian cookbook around to publishers, they were unanimous in their rejection. The book, Moosewood Cookbook, was a compilation of recipes from a little-known vegetarian restaurant in upstate New York where Katzen was the chef. After it was finally published by Ten Speed Press -- at that time a tiny publishing house in Berkeley, Calif. -- it sparked a minor revolution in vegetarian cooking, and indeed, Katzen has been credited with moving vegetarianism into the mainstream American consciousness. In addition, Moosewood Cookbook is one of the 10 bestselling cookbooks of all time, has been inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame, and we chose it as one of the 25 most influential cookbooks in our Silver Anniversary issue in 2004. Several million copies later, Ten Speed is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Katzen’s seminal book with Mollie Katzen’s Recipes: Soups ($14.95), a charming collection derived from Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, as well as a few brand new recipes. Spiral-bound with a fold-out easel base, the book is once again hand-lettered and illustrated, and many of these delicious and relatively easy to make soups could serve as one-dish meals when accompanied by some good crusty bread and a salad. They also provide some great ideas for your prepared foods section.

Cooking
Author and teacher James Peterson has a flair for teaching people how to cook (Corby Kummer says, “J. P. knows everything about cooking. Or at least I’m convinced that he does.”) In his award-winning cookbooks (Sauces, Fish & Shellfish, Vegetables), he has demonstrated a preference for imparting to budding cooks sound techniques and basic, master dishes rather than merely presenting them with another collection of recipes. His newest and maybe most important book, Cooking (Ten Speed Press, $40), is no exception. It represents the culmination of his years behind the stove and the lectern, resulting in a masterful work that is on par with some of the greatest ambassadors of good cooking such as Julia Child, Richard Olney and Jacques Pépin. He begins with a chapter on technique, giving concise but thorough descriptions of the 10 basic cooking methods: roasting, braising, poaching, sautéing, steaming, frying, grilling, smoking, barbecuing and boiling, and then presents what he calls “Recipes to Learn,” 600 dishes accompanied by 1,500 beautiful, full-color, step-by-step photographs taken by the author himself. The recipes are a comprehensive collection showing influences from Europe, Asia and classic American dishes. Work your way through this book and you may never need a cookbook again except for inspiration.

1080 Recipes
1080 Recipes (Phaidon, $39.95) by Simone and Inés Ortega has been called Spain’s Joy of Cooking, and “the Bible of authentic Spanish cooking.” Like JoC, it’s the kind of book you would find in just about every kitchen in Spain. Originally published in 1972 as 1080 Recetas de Cocina by Simone Ortega, one of the most respected food writers in her country, it was an immediate hit and has gone on to sell over two million copies. Her daughter Inés, herself a well-known food writer in Spain, has worked with her mother to update and revise many of the recipes, as well as prepare for the English-language version which sits before me now. The book is a celebration of the unparalleled Spanish ingredients and regional styles of cooking that have of late become the darlings of the American food scene. Arranged from appetizers to desserts (the authors begin with instructions for curing olives and end 1080 recipes later with turron de Jijona), this is not a tapas cookbook, although a great many of the dishes could well be served as such. This tome is greatly enhanced visually by the colorful and charming drawings of renowned Spanish illustrator Javier Mariscal, as well as by over 100 color photographs. As Chef Ferran Adrià says in his introduction, “this is a timeless book . . . each recipe demonstrating its two authors’ dedication to a job well done and their passion for creativity and good food.”

My Love for Naples
The food of southern Italy, and in particular that of Naples (Napoli), was the first Italian food to become well-known in America. Mostly this was due to the large influx of immigrants from that region in the early 20th century. Mozzarella, which originally hails from the region, is the most widely consumed cheese in our country, and pizza, which Anna Teresa Callen wisely points out in her new book, My Love for Naples: The Food, The History, The Life (Hippocrene Books, $35.00), “has conquered the world more than the legions of Caesar!” It is on that spirit that Callen revisits the colorful city of her youth in a cookbook-memoir that presents more than 250 recipes from Campania, including Naples, the islands of Capri and Ischia, and the Amalfi coast. This region is one of the most beautiful places in what is arguably one of the most beautiful countries of the world, and la cucina povera, or “the cooking of the poor,” has resulted in a marvelously inventive cuisine that I find to be among the most flavorful foods of the country. Mario Batali claims that Callen is “one of the national treasures of Italian cookery,” and her new book is a must-have for any serious collection of cookbooks, Italian or otherwise.

The Seventh Daughter
We’ll continue our culinary world tour with The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco (Ten Speed Press, $35) by Cecilia Chiang with Lisa Weiss. This book is also a cookbook-memoir, and the story is compelling. In fact, if anyone tells you they are unmoved by Chiang’s story, you should check their pulse. Born to a well-to-do family in northern China, the author was uprooted by war, robbed of all her possessions, and forced to endure a 1,000-mile trek on foot, eventually escaping China and moving to Japan and then San Francisco. The stories in the book offer a special glimpse into the life of Chinese upper class society in the early decades of the 20th century. Although not allowed into the kitchen as a child, food and the dining room were central to the family. Chiang remembered all those dishes and recreated them when she opened her restaurant Mandarin, which would become a San Francisco institution for over 40 years. This book adds immeasurably to the canon of literature on Chinese cookery.

The Food Life
I’m very excited about a new book from Steven Jenkins (author of the seminal Cheese Primer) and Fairway Market, the ever-exciting specialty food market in New York City. Titled The Food Life (Ecco Books/Harper Collins, $29.95), it marks the culmination of knowledge gleaned from a life in the food business. Jenkins considers all manner of food -- conventional, high-end and artisanal -- with special emphasis given to cheese, olives and olive oil, deli products, and much more, all of which Jenkins and Fairway import themselves from around the world. Recipes from Mitchel London, longtime chef at Fairway Market and former chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch, photography by Jenkins’ wife Michelle Sims, and a healthy sampling of Jenkins’ blogs that have been featured on the Fairway Web site for the past few years, add up to make this one of the most anticipated books of the year. Steven Jenkins -- along with Fairway Market -- is a giant in our industry (we included him in our Silver Anniversary issue’s list of 25 people who shaped the specialty food industry), and the book is worth the price for his ruminations on food and the food business, as well as for London’s brilliant recipes. This book is a must-have for retailers.

Flavors of Slovenia
Just when you thought there were no more regional cuisines to discover, here is Flavors of Slovenia (Hippocrene Books, $24.95) by Heike Milhench, a loving look at a little-known culture that derives many of its roots from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The book features 200 recipes ranging from the traditional to modern. With influences from neighboring Hungary, Austria, Italy and the Balkan Republics, the book includes Friko (Potato Pancakes), Bakala (Dried Salt Cod Pâté), and Kostanjeva Juha (Chestnut Soup). For the truly adventurous, there is also Mezerli, a version of Haggis with baked encrusted pig or veal lung. Throughout the book are folk tales of local legends, essays on the culture’s beekeeping tradition, a special section on Slovenian wines, and even some ruminations on golf (apparently the country has very nice golf courses). With its focus on local and seasonal ingredients, as well as for its Old World charm, add this to your collection of ethnic cookbooks.

Upper Crusts
Growing up in my house, bread never went to waste no matter how old it was. Typically, the dried slices would go into a bread pudding at the end of the week but that was the extent of our bread repertoire. Sheilah Kaufman has come up with a lot more ways to use leftover bread in her new book, Upper Crusts: 150 Fabulous Ways to Use Bread (Capital Books, $20). The author begins with bread crumbs and bread salads, and goes on to present soups, bread as containers, sweet and savory bread puddings, and even a whole chapter on French toast. This is a great book to stack up next to your fresh bread display in hopes that no one will ever throw out stale bread again.

The Story of Tea
Although not strictly a cookbook (there are several recipes for cooking with tea), The Story of Tea (Ten Speed Press, $29.95) by Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss is a must-have for anyone who sells or enjoys tea. In fact, it may be the definitive tea book for some time to come. The authors, veteran tea traders and owners of Cooks Shop Here, a specialty food store in Northampton, Mass., walk the walk and talk the talk when it comes to tea. They have traveled extensively to source their teas (most of the location photography was taken by the authors), and clearly they have done their research into the second-most-consumed beverage on earth (plain water is first). In addition to having produced an absolutely beautiful book, they have included a staggering amount of information on tea, how and where it is grown, how it is processed into the form we consume, how terroir affects the tea, and how to brew the perfect cuppa’. They also offer sterling essays on the health benefits of tea, customs and culture surrounding tea, ethics in the tea trade, and as mentioned above, cooking with tea -- all in a readable and entertaining format. Like last year’s The Essence of Chocolate, this will be the tea book for the ages, one that will help define and codify the industry for many years to come.