After many years (26 in retail) of working full time and two years of rather boring retirement, I dragged out my 13 year old like new breadmaker. My daughter saw it so I offered it to her. Surprisingly, she took it so off I went to buy a new one.New Oster breadmaker sitting ready to be used, I made a few loaves from recipes I found online. Most turned out OK but none were quite as they should be. I had quickly discovered that although making a good loaf of bread was not difficult it DID require a bit of "tweeking" on the bakers end. I bought a highly recommended three inch thick bread machine cookbook that had hundreds of recipes in it. But I had no idea where to begin.Then I saw the Betty Crocker Best Bread Machine Cookbook. In my 65 years, Betty Crocker has never failed me. It stated that each recipe had been tested on many different bread makers which to me said the recipe had already been tweeked. I ordered it without hesitation.Let me start by saying that this cookbook is perfect for a newbie to bread making or someone like myself who gets frustrated by having too many failures. I had found bread making rather theraputic even with my less than perfect loaves but I doubted I would continue my new hobby for long if I failed to make a decent loaf of bread.This cookbook IS foolproof! The catagories it covers are: Good and Savory, Wholesome Grains, Fruit and Nut, Smaller (1 lb) Loaves, Rustic and Flatbread, Rolls and Bread Sticks, Sweet Breads and Coffee Cakes as well as many helpful hints in the front and back of the book.You have separate lists of ingredients for different size loaves (mainly 1 1/2 and 2 lb loaves). If a particular recipe does not work well in a particular shape pan or loaf size, it tells you so thus saving you much trial and error. And from my very first loaf using a recipe for basic white bread, my loaves come out perfect. After my largely decent tasting but strange looking first loaves, it is a joy to end up with a professional looking loaf of homemade bread that tastes good!If you are new to bread making or are buying a bread machine for someone, add a copy of this book to your purchase. This Betty Crocker cookbook has lots of recipes to keep you busy for quite some time. After your bread making success with this book, you may well be inspired to try some of the recipes in the three inch thick cookbook!By the way, I now have TWO bread machines, the second a West Bend that just arrived today (will try it out tomorrow). With Christmas about 2 months away, I will be making bread as gifts (as well as cookies and candies). Once I try the West Bend, I will leave reviews for it and the Oster. It is so hard to decide which machine to buy. So I solved the problem with buying them both!