As many home cooks will tell you, they can never have too many cookbooks. But with so many new titles published each year, how do you know which book your foodie friend will appreciate the most? We've scoured the shelves for our favourite gift-worthy titles, some of them brand new this year, others we depend on time and time again, and a few timeless classics every cook should own. Our favourite cookbooks published in 2013: How to Feed a Family by Ceri Marsh and Laura Keogh: Full disclosure: Ceri and Laura are good friends of ours here at Cityline.ca, and we've collaborated with them for a number of years. That said, this is a dynamite book -- perfect not just for families but couples and singles too. It's filled with healthy, approachable, but most importantly delicious recipes. We've cooked more than half a dozen dishes out of it already (Ginger pork over pasta, Grilled shrimp salad, Whole grain blueberry muffins) and all have been tasty and satisfying. Ottolenghi: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi: Yotam Ottolenghi first made a splash in 2011 with Plenty, a book that redefined vegetarian cooking. A year later, Jerusalem wowed us with its gorgeous, flavourful cross-cultural fare. Now, we're fortunate to have a North American release for the 2008 cookbook based on Ottolenghi's eponymous restaurants in London. Filled with Mediteranean-tinged recipes such as Cauliflower and cumin fritters with lime yogurt, and Grilled eggplant and lemon soup. Balaboosta by Einat Admony: What stood out to us most when we chatted with Einat Admony was her boundless energy and her obvious love for her craft. That translates to this beautiful, sophisticated and funny book with mouthwatering recipes for Chicken with pomegranate and walnuts, Creamy, cheesy potatoes, and Einat's Homemade Kit-Kat. We admit, that last recipe sold us! Our top picks for the newbie cook: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman: Outside of the recipes (which are fabulous), what we love most about Deb Perelman's Smitten Kitchen food blog -- and the cookbook that followed in 2012 -- is the way her voice comes through on the page: warm, self-deprecating, and endlessly encouraging. She makes us believe that we can absolutely prepare Chocolate chip brioche pretzels, Spaghetti squash tacos with queso fresco, and Butternut squash and onion galette, every bit as well as she can. That kind of coaching makes us want to get into the kitchen more often! Barefoot Contessa: How Easy Is That? by Ina Garten: Ina Garten's recipes aren't exactly low-cal, but they sure are scrumptious. We love how simple but excellent the recipes are in How Easy Is That? and that could be why it's the most sauce-spattered and dog-eared of our Ina books. We particularly love her Weeknight Bolognese. Ruhlman's Twenty by Michael Ruhlman: Michael Ruhlman has a wealth of knowledge about food and cooking and has published a number of go-to books on everything from making your own charcuterie to the wonders of rendered chicken fat. Twenty outlines 20 essential cooking lessons, from the importance of salt, to techniques such as grilling, poaching and sauteing, with 100 recipes that showcase how his rules impact the final product. One of those books that will make you a better overall cook. Classic titles every home cook should own: The Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl: We're still mourning Gourmet's demise, but for the best recipes from the food magazine's six decades of publication look no further than this yellow-covered tome. More than 1,000 recipes inside for everything from the basics every cook should know, to dinner party-worthy dishes, to feasts for the holidays. How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman: Whenever we have a cooking question, we turn to Bittman's book for the answer. The New York Times columnist and cookbook author has put out a number of sizable cooking resources, but this is our favourite all-around title. Bittman has helped us up our culinary game on everything from homemade salad vinaigrettes to roasted vegetables and meats. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan: If you love to cook Italian food (and who doesn't?), this title by Marcella Hazan's is a must. This edition modernizes and combines Hazan's two previous books: The Classic Italian Cook Book and More Classic Italian Cooking into one indispensable guide. For the baker: In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley: This award-winning baker's compendium is terrific -- the recipes are sophisticated and delicious (Think: Guava cheesecake, Deep dish raspberry pie, Really, really fudgy brownies). Best of all, almost half of the book is dedicated to the description of ingredients and what they pair well with. A great guide for those looking to play around with flavours in their baked creations. Back to Baking by Anna Olson: Anna Olson has long tempted our sweet tooth with her incredible sweets. As much as we loved her first cookbook, Sugar, our new go-to is the collection of recipes in Back to Baking. Her Salted orange toffee slices are a must-bake at holiday time, and her Maple pecan chocolate tarts are like a butter tart to the extreme. The chapters with dairy-free and gluten-free recipes are especially helpful when you're baking for someone with an intolerance. Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan: We're big Dorie fans here at Cityline.ca -- our favourite of her books is this must-have guide for any baker. Filled with beautiful cakes, cookies, muffins, pies, and any other baked good you might want to create, Dorie's friendly, encouraging prose assures us of baking success. What cookbook are you hoping to receive this year? Or is there one we missed from our list? Share your picks in the comments below.

Are you reading along with the Cityline Book Club? Our latest pick is the Giller Prize-winning short story collection Hellgoing by Lynn Coady, and our Cityline staffers are loving these excellently written stories. Coady does an amazing job of capturing a story and sucking us into it within only 15-30 pages, and we can't stop devouring each and every one. Want to hear an excerpt? We recorded Coady reading from her favourite story in the collection, "Mr. Hope". Watch below to see her read the first few pages of the story! [embed]bcid:2859854091001[/embed] Are you enjoying Hellgoing so far? Share your thoughts in the comments! We can't wait to discuss it with you!

Novelist Colin McAdam has won the 2013 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for his third novel, A Beautiful Truth (Hamish Hamilton Canada), at a ceremony in Toronto last night. The novel tells the parallel stories of a couple who adopt a chimpanzee, and the primates at a Florida research institute. The $25,000 prize is McAdam's first major Canadian literary award win, although he received critical praise for his first two novels, Some Great Thing (2004) and Fall (2009). Cityline Book Club author Lisa Moore was also nominated for the Fiction Prize for her novel Caught, but she instead took home the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. The prize, which is also worth $25,000, recognizes a mid-career writer for his or her body of work. Here is the full list of prize winners:

• Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize:Colin McAdam, Some Great Truth (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Writers’ Trust of Canada / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize:Naben Ruthnum, "Cinema Rex" (The Malahat Review)
• Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award:Lisa Moore
• Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People:Barbara Reid
• Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life:Andrew Nikiforuk
• Writers’ Trust Distinguished Contribution Award:McClelland & Stewart

Have you read A Beautiful Truth or any of Colin McAdam's previous books? Will you be checking it out now that it won the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize? Let us know in the comments below!

When we selected Lynn Coady’s Giller Prize-winning short story collection Hellgoing as our latest Cityline Book Club pick, it prompted us to think about other short stories and collections that have made an impression on us over the years. There’s something infinitely appealing about reading a short story – the plots are meaty, the prose is efficient, and of course there’s the instant gratification of being to burn through one (or several) in an evening. Here are a few of our favourite classic tales, some of which you might recognize from your junior or high school curriculum. Whether or not you’ve read them before, we highly recommend picking them up (again) and sinking your teeth into some of the best short fiction ever written. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson: Jackson’s classic tale of conformity is dark, disturbing, and brilliant. First published in 1948 in The New Yorker, the story was initially met with anger from readers, some of which sent hate mail and cancelled their subscriptions. Now, it’s considered one of the most famous short stories ever written – it’s taught in schools across North America. The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe: While it’s difficult to name just one of Poe’s stories, the one that sticks with us the most is this Gothic tale of murder, and the guilty narrator trying to convince the reader of his sanity. Poe’s story first appeared in literary magazine The Pioneer in 1843. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving: This and Irving’s other famous story, Rip Van Winkle, were contained in a collection of stories and essays called, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published in 1820. We first learned about this story in cartoon form – who could forget Bing Crosby’s chilling narration of the Disney animated short? – but Irving’s prose is atmospheric and unforgettable. A Vendetta, by Guy de Maupassant : Guy de Maupassant wrote about 300 short stories in his career, and is considered one of the masters of the form. A Vendetta, only about 2,000 words in length, is a macabre story of revenge exacted by the mother of a slain man upon his killer. The Veldt (from the collection, The Illustrated Man), by Ray Bradbury: In a futuristic society, a family lives in an automated home that does everything for them. When the 3D nursery becomes stuck in a tableau of an African veldt, complete with lions grazing on their dinner, a psychiatrist suggests the parents ‘turn off’ the home and become more self-sufficient. The children take issue with that, not wanting to lose their beloved nursery. We won’t spoil the ending for you in case you haven’t read it, but we guarantee it’s unforgettable. If you enjoy this, consider reading the sci-fi master’s other, longer works, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes. The Devil and Daniel Webster, by Stephen Vincent Benet: In this retelling of the Faust story, Daniel Webster is a lawyer defending a farmer against the Devil, who claims that the farmer sold him his soul in exchange for seven years of prosperity. While the story is fictional, the character of Daniel Webster was based on the real-life Civil War era U.S. senator, known for his public speaking skills. We want to know what your favourite short story is! Share your picks in the comments below.

Following up on her Man Booker Prize win last month, Eleanor Catton has won the Governor General's Literary Award for her second novel, The Luminaries (McClelland & Stewart). Her winning novel, The Luminaries, is an epic Victorian-era murder mystery, set in the 1860s New Zealand gold rush. In her acceptance speech, the London, Ontario-born Catton discussed the novel's many influences, from 19th-century European literature to Canadian and U.S. fiction. The Canada Council for the Arts, which administers the annual literary prize, announced this year's winners during a ceremony in Toronto. The winner of each category receives $25,000 as well as a specially bound copy of his or her book. Here is the full list of English-language prize winners: Fiction: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (McClelland & Stewart) Poetry: Katherena Vermette, North End Love Songs (The Muses’ Company) Drama: Nicolas Billon, Fault Lines (Coach House Books) Non-fiction: Sandra Djwa, Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (McGill-Queen’s University Press) Children’s Literature, Text: Teresa Toten, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (Doubleday Canada) Children’s Literature, Illustration: Matt James, Northwest Passage; text by Stan Rogers (Groundwood Books) Translation, French to English: Donald Winkler, The Major Verbs (Signal Editions); English translation of Les verbes majeurs by Pierre Nepveu Have you read The Luminaries or any of this year's Governor General's Literary Award winners? Are you planning on picking them up now? Let us know in the comments! Photo credit: Robert Catto