This year, give books: 66 books from 2013 you won't want to miss

COOK: A baker’s dozen of the year’s best cookbooks

Le Livre Blanc by Anne-Sophie Pic (Jacqui Small): Stunning photography highlights artful dishes by one of the world’s true top chefs.

René Redzepi: A Work in Progress by René Redzepi (Phaidon Press): The Scandinavian chef’s journey of self-discovery charted in cookbook, journal and snapshots.

Elizabeth David on Vegetables by Elizabeth David (Studio): Reissue of a simple yet world-changing masterwork.

Robicelli’s: A Love Story, With Cupcakes: With 50 Decidedly Grown-Up Recipes by Allison and Matt Robicelli (Viking Books): Tart prose matches adult flavors.

Vegan Secret Supper: Bold & Elegant Menus from a Rogue Kitchen by Mérida Anderson (Arsenal Pulp Press): Innovative dishes sourced from the underground supper club.

Balaboosta by Einat Admony (Artisan): Like an Israeli Nigella Lawson, Admony is more home cook, less fancy chef.

Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession and Recipes from Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Joint by Ivan Orkin (Ten Speed Press): A man, a plan, a bowl: Ivan.

Recipes From an Edwardian Country House: Classic Tastes From the English Stately Home by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall (Atria Books): Get your Downton on.

Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand by Andy Ricker (Ten Speed Press): Travelogue-cum-cookbook of so-called humble dishes.

The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book: Uncommon Recipes from the Celebrated Brooklyn Pie Shop by Emily and Melissa Elsen (Grand Central): Unexpected flavors and high-low combos.

Smoke and Pickles: Recipes and Stories From a New Southern Kitchen by Edward Lee (Artisan): Korean-Southern fusion from the Top Chef: Texas fan favorite.

Bake and Destroy: Good Food for Bad Vegans by Natalie Slater (Page Street Publishing): What it lacks in animal ingredients, it makes up for in punk attitude.

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach (Ecco): Just breathe. And sit down to a meal with your loved ones.

MIX: Stories from behind the stick

Savory Cocktails: Sour Spicy Herbal Umami Bitter Smoky Rich Strong by Greg Henry (Ulysses Press): Put down the simple syrup.

Apothecary Cocktails: Restorative Drinks from Yesterday and Today by Warren Bobrow (Fair Winds Press): The Cocktail Whisperer shares classic alcoholic “remedies.”

Craft Cocktails at Home: Offbeat Techniques, Contemporary Crowd-Pleasers and Classics Hacked With Science by Kevin K. Liu (self-published): Invaluable principles of mixology, meticulously tested.

The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books): Guide to the herbs, spices, flowers, fruits, trees and nuts that flavor your cocktail.

The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert: Take a Whiff of That by Richard Betts (Rux Martin): No easier way to learn what you like.

LISTEN: Words and pictures about sounds

Yé-Yé! Girls of ’60s French Pop by Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe (Feral House): Well-researched but not academic look at les demoiselles du French pop, with foreword by Lio (singer of the seminal “Le Banana Split”). Zou bisou bisou!

Late Century Dream: Movements in the U.S. Indie Music Underground by Tom Howells, Noel Gardner, Pavel Godfrey and Brian Howe (Black Dog Publishing): Editors from The Quietus, Pitchfork and NME take on America’s late-’90s scene. Bonus: cover photo by one of our own, Orlando photog Jim Leatherman.

Mexican Summer: Five Years Photo book of art and ephemera plus 10-inch vinyl (extremely limited edition, no digital version) from the label that brought you Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Tallest Man on Earth and more.

The Replacements: Waxed-Up Hair and Painted Shoes by Jim Walsh and Dennis Pernu (Voyageur Press): Treasure trove of previously unseen photos and interviews memorializing the late great rock-crit darlings.

LOOK: New ways of seeing the everyday

The Best American Infographics 2013 edited by Gareth Cook, foreword by David Byrne (Mariner Books): Data visualization may be the apex art form of our time.

Alternative Movie Posters: Film Art from the Underground by Matthew Chojnacki (Schiffer Publishing): Don’t miss local Lure Design’s poster for The Shining, right on page 2.

Self Portrait as Your Traitor by Debbie Millman (HOW Books): Can a book of hand-drawn type make you cry? This one can.

The Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz (Harry N. Abrams): Indispensable reference guide to the hermetic and beautiful world of Wes.

And Every Day Was Overcast by Paul Kwiatkowski (Black Balloon Publishing): Growing up bored and high in South Florida.

HOW WE LIVE NOW: Where we are, where we’re headed

The Circle by Dave Eggers (Knopf): The slow-creep nightmare of working for a monolithic Google-esque tech corp.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf): Observations on American blackness by a non-American black woman. Bonus: The author is sampled on Beyoncé’s new album.

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese): Third volume of Atwood’s dystopian series is less rollicking, more elegiac, still terrifying.

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Spiegel & Grau): Interlocking stories of China’s new pecking order from a Taipei Tom Wolfe.

NEW YORK STORIES: Evocations of America’s eternal city

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (Scribner): Sex and speed – the MPH kind – in the downtown ’70s art scene.

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press): Pynchon on 9/11: Follow the money. Corruption, conspiracy, loathsome dot-com financiers.

Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco): Small but flawless tale is nominally a “thriller,” but actually a portrait of a disappearing community.

Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday): Red-diaper baby raised in a Greenwich Village commune.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown and Co.): A Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century.

LIVES – 1ST PERSON: Chaos remembered in tranquility

Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen (Viking): Irascible jazz purist (and half of Steely Dan) limns own life. Not recommended for moldy figs.

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh (Touchstone): Sidesplitting comics of depression, dog ownership and cake.

Buck ’Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens (Backbeat Books): Remarkably lucid reminiscences from the influential Bakersfield songwriter.

Mumbai New York Scranton: A Memoir by Tamara Shopsin (Scribner): Humor and intelligence suffuse the illustrator’s spare, incisive, yet emotional travelogue.

Autobiography by Morrissey (Putnam): This charming man.

LIVES – 3RD PERSON: True stories of the great and the wicked

A Mysterious Something in the Light: The Life of Raymond Chandler by Tom Williams (Chicago Review Press): New interviews and unpublished letters illuminate the private life of our finest crime writer.

Salinger by David Shields, Shane Salerno (Simon & Schuster): Muckraking oral history of the reclusive writer beloved by generations of undergrads.

Fosse by Sam Wasson (Eamon Dolan): Sex, drugs and jazz hands.

Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson (Scribner): The Bell Jar years.

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch (Harper): Irascible jazz purist limns life of bebop pioneer. Not recommended for moldy figs.

A CHEF’S LIFE: The making of a kitchen dweller

Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr (Clarkson Potter): Massive feat of research re-creates a defining moment of French-American cuisine.

No Experience Necessary by Norman Van Aken (Taylor Trade Publishing): A Key West Kitchen Confidential from a king of Floridian high-end dining.

Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites by Kate Christensen (Doubleday): How food can shape your life – and your art.

Drinking With Men by Rosie Schaap (Riverhead): Chronicle of the search for a warm, safe place among comrades by the New York Times cocktail columnist.

L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food by Roy Choi (Ecco): West Coast knucklehead shapes up, launches modern food-truck movement. The first title from Anthony Bourdain’s Ecco imprint.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley (First Second): Charming memoir of a food-obsessed childhood, told in comic form.

FASHION: Observations on chic

Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli and Me by Patricia Volk (Knopf): The formative influence of two fashion obsessives.

Man Repeller: Seeking Love, Finding Overalls by Leandra Medine (Grand Central Publishing): What’s a fashion blogger to do when her addiction to eccentric ensembles turns off men?

The Asylum: A Collage of Couture Reminiscences and Hysteria by Simon Doonan (Blue Rider Press): Madcap exposé of the “glamorous madness” of the people who decide what you wear.

Diana Vreeland Memos: The Vogue Years edited by Alexander Vreeland (Rizzoli): Behind the scenes at work with the legendary editor.

FLORIDA WRITERS, FLORIDA STORIES: Portraits of and by our friends and neighbors

Facadomy: A Critique on Capitalism and Its Assault on Mid-Century Modern Architecture by James Cornetet (Process Press): A bucket list of Orlando midcentury marvels wrapped in a spot-on rant against poorly planned development.

American Fraternity Man by Nathan Holic (Beating Windward Press): Hilarious coming-of-age tale from the Burrow Press editor.

No Regrets, Coyote by John Dufresne (W.W. Norton & Co.): Everglades-set crime novel kicks off on an unquiet Christmas Eve.

Met Her on the Mountain: A Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan by Mark I. Pinsky (John F. Blair, Publisher): Orlando author unpacks a very cold case.

The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis (Atlantic Monthly Press): Florida State University professor does nothing less than define post-WWII/ pre-9/11 America.

Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State by T.D. Allman (Atlantic Monthly Press): An acidic tome covering five centuries of Floridian greed, racism and violence.

LOCAL EATS: Recipes by and for Orlandoans

9 Courses by Brandon McGlamery (Story Farm): The culinary roots of the James Beard-nominated chef of Luma and Prato; cookbook available at those restaurants or at lumaonpark.com or prato-wp.com.

The Southern Cowboy Cookbook by John Rivers (Story Farm): Local barbecue evangelist shares tips; available in 4 Rivers Smokehouse restaurants or at 4rsmokehouse.com.

Savory Bites: Meals You Can Make in Your Cupcake Pan by Hollis Wilder (Stewart, Tabori and Chang): Owner-operator of Sweet! By Good Golly Miss Holly proves that not all cupcakes are sweet.