Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread is one of many wonderful bread books that have been published over the years. The reason I chose this book over some of the others I have on my bookshelf is that I find it to be so accessible. It's as if Mr. Reinhart anticipated all the questions we might have about baking bread and answered them in the first section of the book. The book is structured in such a way that you learn everything you need to know about bread baking before you even arrive at the first recipe. The book is also chock full of helpful photo tutorials, which makes techniques such as shaping much easier to learn.