If the Joy of Cooking wasn't up your alley, which cookbook w

Maybe try one of the Bon Appetit books or one from their Fast Easy Fresh series. Or Cooks Illustrated Best Recipe.

Williams-Sonoma Cooking at Home maybe.

Another Better Homes and Gardens cookbook user here. It is the only one we seem to use.

I have Joy, but mainly use it as a reference, rather than for specific recipes. I tend to like Better Homes & Gardens recipes, but get them from magazines, I don't have the book.

I like Bittman's How to cook everything, and now I want his latest How to Cook everything FAST

I have at least 50 cookbooks and these days I hit the iPad for recipes online rather than go to my books. But every once in a while I will plan a nice meal on the weekend and spend some time browsing through the books. The ones I use the most are the old Martha Stewart books, Rachel Ray and some specialty Italian books.

 I do use their Basic Pancake Recipe, but mostly use it more as a reference book.

I would recommend The America's Test Kitchen Cooking School book, anything by Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) and the Cooking Light Annual Recipe book. I use BH&G recipes, but have never bought one of the cookbooks.

Barefoot Contessa all her recipes are yummy and there are photos

My MIL gave me the Better Homes and Garden cookbook the first Christmas DH and I were married.  Although I don't use it much anymore, it was my go-to cookbook during the first years of marriage when I was learning to cook.

I enjoyed the Joy of Cooking, but more as non-fiction reading than using the recipes.  I like the way it explains how things work, but the recipes I found to need more preparation that I had time to spend.  

(for both of these, I'm referring to the editions published in the late 70's  - I have no idea what current editions are like).

I use online recipes almost exclusively now (other than my old tried and true recipes.) But the one cookbook I've kept over the years is my Betty Crocker cookbook. All the basics are in there and a recipe has never failed me yet.

My mom bought me "The Silver Palette" cookbook for Christmas after I got married. It has a lot of great instructions and additional information. 

My favourite recipe is a sauteed mushroom mix that goes into beef wellington. I didn't put it into beef wellington--I used it with a pastry wrapped beef roast. It was so amazing dh and I kept eating the mixture out of the fridge. 

The cookbook I've used the most is "How to Cook Meat" by Christopher Schlesinger and John Willoughby. A gourmet cook friend of ours introduced us to this cookbook when dh and I were newlyweds. The book tells you how to cook different cuts of meat as well as how to identify them at the grocery store--different stores call the meat cuts different names. 

We saved so much money by knowing how to use cheaper cuts as well as being able to identify the different cuts--sometimes Costco's 'beef stew' has tenderloin trimmings, so I can get tenderloin incredibly cheap. 

I also love the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I haven't had a bad recipe yet. 

I love Nigella Lawson's books, but not all of them are for everyday cooking. Still, they're gorgeous and inspirational. "Forever Summer" is my favourite.

I never buy a cookbook without checking it out from the library first. No specific recommendations from me because most of the time once I do that, I end up not wanting to buy it.