For a recent birthday I got Heston Blumenthal's "Historic Heston" book and I just started reading it. This is my third Heston book and the intro and the first recipe do not disappoint. As per usual it is full of very interesting bits of information about the science and history of food. Another thing I like is that each dish is broken down into individual mini-recipes that can be useful in their own right. I haven't started cooking from it yet, but here is a picture of the Scallop Tartar in White Chocolate Foam from his earlier books that I did for our Christmas dinner as a starter last year.