“What is that you so beautifully do?” Henry James is said to have once asked someone, somewhere or other. And for no tribe of workers does the question make more sense than for book editors. What is ...

From weeknight-friendly dishes to low-stress baking, today’s most influential cookbooks are meeting readers where they are.

The fact that this cookbook is filled with step-by-step instructions and corresponding photographs made me hopeful. Cookbook author and Pasta Social Club founder Meryl Feinstein writes that at the ...