1 Eat Tweet: Maureen Evans (Artisan, £12.99)

The anti-cookbook cookbook. No evocative prose here, just 1,020 recipes boiled down to 140 characters or less. For people who don't read much.

2 Kitchenella: Rose Prince (4th Estate, £26)

"A book about feminine cookery" and treatise against the "phoney cooking" of celebrity chefs, but full of family-friendly meals. The lack of pictures might irritate some, but that kind of attitude is what this book sets itself against.

3 Biscotti Mona Talbott & Mirella Misenti (The Little Bookroom, £9.99)

As you'd expect from a book with a foreword by Alice Waters, its recipes are sustainable yet delicious – 50 types of Italian cookies from pine nut and rosemary to honey and cardamom.

4 Food From Many Greek Kitchens:Tessa Kiros (Murdoch, £25)

If you can see past the turquoise typefaces, you'll find delicious dishes from a relatively under-plundered cuisine.

5 Leon Book 2: Henry Dimbleby & John Vincent (Conran, £20)

Subtitled Naturally Fast Food, this is one for anyone who needs weaning off ready meals. The jazzy layout often disguises quite challenging projects.

6 Reinventing Food: Ferran Adria, Colman Andrews (Phaidon, £19.95)

Meticulous biography of the Catalan chef who makes Heston Blumenthal look a bit slapdash.

7 Jamie's 30 Minute Meals: Jamie Oliver (Penguin/Michael Joseph, £26)

For the friend who doesn't have the time, money or inclination to cook – most decent chefs would be happy if they turned these meals out in an hour.

8 Whoopie Pie Book: Claire Ptak (Square Peg, £15)

Whoopie pies are the new cupcakes – a cookie-cream sandwich invented by the Amish. Ptak, is their chief evangelist – she's the owner of east London's Violet cakes, a graduate of Chez Panisse and Jamie Oliver's "favourite cake maker".

9 Canteen: Cass Titcombe, Dominic Lake & Patrick Clayton-Malone (Ebury, £16.99)

Uncomplicated British comfort food without a twist. For anyone who needs a refresher course on the classics.

10 Keys to Good Cooking:Harold McGee (Hodder & Stoughton, £25)

If all the other books on this list are the How?, then this is the Why? If you want to know why cakes collapse, sauces separate and why you shouldn't serve fresh oysters, then Harold McGee is your man.

11 Curry Easy: Madhur Jaffrey (Ebury, £20)

The latest volume from the most trusted of Indian food writers, featuring new, speedier, simplified recipes that don't compromise on taste or authenticity.

12 The Flavour Thesaurus: Niki Segnit (Bloomsbury, £18.99)

Something different for your pal with a fridge-full of cookbooks. A forensic yet fun exploration of flavour combinations and why they work, from the usual (lamb and mint) to the unlikely (watermelon and oyster).

13 My Kitchen, Real Food From Near and Far: Stevie Parle (Quadrille, £14.99)

At last month's OFM Awards our panel named 25-year-old Parle Young Chef of the Year. This collection draws on his time travelling in the east, Morocco and Ireland, and working in Britain. If he wasn't so fresh-faced we'd suspect him of lying about his age.

14 Momofuku: David Chang (Absolute Press, £25)

Chang runs five of the hippest restaurants in the world, all in New York – where he creates "bad pseudo-fusion cuisine" such as shaved foie gras, and pork belly ssäm with mustard seed sauce. It's so tricky to get a reservation that cooking your own approximation might be the closest you get.

15 Mexican Food Made Simple: Thomasina Miers (Hodder & Stoughton, £20)

Mexican food has a bad rep. With dishes such as oriental ceviche and courgette flower omelette with ricotta and tarragon, this book will transform your view.

16 Liquid Memory: Jonathan Nossiter (Atlantic, £14.99)

Written by a film director and ex-sommelier, a spirited critique of the globalised wine industry that caters to American tastes at the expense of terroir – the soul and sense of place of a wine.

17 Quay: Peter Gilmore (Murdoch, £35)

A beautifully produced tome that will be more at home on a coffee table than a butcher's block. The book of the feted Sydney restaurant features dishes such as "slow braised Berkshire pig jowl, maltose crackling, prunes, soubise cream perfumed with prune kernel oil" and another that uses 20 varieties of radish and turnip.

18 Cook: Rebecca Seal (Guardian, £25)

OFM's very own book! Introduced by Nigel Slater and Jay Rayner, a compendium of seasonal recipes from Britain's greatest chefs – Giorgio Locatelli, Mark Hix, Claude Bosi and many others.

19 How I Cook: Skye Gyngell (Quadrille, £25)

From Petersham Nurseries' doyenne, recipes that reach their optimal deliciousness if eaten al fresco, on a summer's evening, with scented candles on the table.

20 Plenty: Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury, £25)

The chef who has reinvented vegetarian cuisine as sexy and decadent – so ideal for all your sexy, decadent vegetarian friends.

21 Thai Street Food: David Thompson (Conran, £40)

Take advantage of the Michelin-starred chef's trawl for the best of Bangkok's street vendors. Follow the precise, authentic recipes and the results will be better than your local Thai. Probably.

22 Noma: René Redzepi (Phaidon, £35)

Named this year as the best restaurant in the world, even its oak chairs have been smoked for seven hours. Only the most ambitious would attempt these amazing amalgams, but there's plenty of pleasure to be had from looking at the pictures. For the kitchen confident.

23 Tender II: Nigel Slater (4th Estate, £30)

Subtitled "a cook's guide to the fruit garden" this is the companion book to the successful vegetable volume. Seasonally organised, with succulent prose.

24 The French Menu Cookbook: Richard Olney (Collins, £20)

Earlier this year, OFM's expert panel voted this the best cookbook of all time. Only problem was it was out of print. But it has been reissued, so now everyone can delight in Olney's passionate, idiosyncratic rendering of French cuisine.

25 At Elizabeth David's Table: Elizabeth David (Michael Joseph, £25)

Elizabeth David's original, seminal cookbooks didn't contain any photography – so this greatest hits compilation is a wonderful introduction to one of the greatest cookery writers.

• Click here to order any of the books below at a discount with free UK p&p