Maybe you look forward to Thanksgiving with dread. Perhaps you'd rather suffer dental surgery than take to the kitchen to prepare an extensive, complicated holiday meal. Maybe you do everything possible to ingratiate yourself with family or friends so you can be the guest and not the host or hostess ... not responsible for all those time-consuming preparations.

Or maybe you love the holidays and start counting down to Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Christmas-in-July sales events. You're the one who opens the doors of your home and your kitchen to a dozen or more guests with whom you're thrilled to share the flavorful, hard-won fruits of your labors. You spend all year collecting new recipes to use and squirreling away appropriate decorations to whip out the moment Halloween is over.

Good news: I have a Thanksgiving cookbook (though recipes can apply to any time of the year and any holiday) that addresses both of you.

The editors of Fine Cooking present the Fine Cooking Thanksgiving Cookbook, your one-stop save for new recipe ideas, step-by-step how-to instructions, innumerable tips, and wisdom for what to do if something should go wrong.

Consider it the only cookbook you'll ever need for all the Thanksgiving basics, from how big a turkey you'll need to what to do with the giblets (yes, you'll learn what those are, too, if you're unfamiliar). Thanksgiving will never be so simple.

Follow the carefully crafted directions, so detailed and approachable and so chock full of things to remember and watch for that even a beginning cook will be able to tackle any of the recipes, to create any of the included recipes (and there are dozens from which to choose). You'll be making much more than just the turkey: there are chapters of appetizers, salads and soups, vegetables, pies and tarts, and desserts, all seasonally appropriate and beautifully illustrated with sleek colorful photographs that beg to be eaten right off the page.

One of the most helpful parts of the entire book, in fact, is all of the basic techniques you'll use to create the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, and which you can continue to use in many more meal-making endeavors to come. How do you make pan gravy? How do you tell if the turkey is done without drying out the white meat? What do you do if you have extra stuffing that won't fit inside the bird? What's the quickest way to thaw a frozen turkey before baking? All of these questions, and more, will be answered for you.

The best part about the cookbook is that you'll never feel lectured or "talked down to." The tone is friendly and conversational, just as though you were cooking alongside an expert friend who knows how to handle every aspect of the holiday dinner at hand, and you'll feel at ease immediately.

If you're looking for an all-inclusive guide to that iconic holiday meal, the editors of Fine Cooking have your number. Get yourself a copy, stat!

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Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this work from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest, though not necessarily positive, review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

This book is from the editors of Fine Cooking Magazine. Anyone familiar with that publication will recognize the style of the recipes contained within this all-encompassing book on Thanksgiving cooking. There are a wide variety of recipes here for soups, sauces, gravies, different ways to deal with a turkey as well as different preparation methods, and plenty of side dishes. There are helpful instructions and illustrations, and everything is clear and concise. All of that said, the lack of copious photos for such a wonderful and colorful time of the year left me a bit cold. Yes, I want good recipes, but I also want to be tempted by the beautiful photography.