Entry level book for bread baking
Customer Rating: 
The Bread Baker's Apprentice book is a good entry book for bread baking.
Most recipes are based on commercial yeast (as opposed to sourdough), making them more suitable for most readers. Those who are looking for sourdough based recipes should look elsewhere (for example Daniel Leader's Bread Alone).
My favorite recipe are bagels. Simple and great tasting. Bagels recipe alone is enough to buy this book. Retarded baguet taste great too. There are many recepies from around the world.
If you don't want to mess with sourdough, than I highly recomend this book.
Good but DISAPPOINTED w/ damage caused during transit
Customer Rating: Although I have been a long-time satisfied customer, I now feel an obligation to warn you against purchasing this from Amazon. If you do, you will risk having an experience similar to mine and receiving a damaged book, or even receiving two damaged books.
Based upon two successive experiences, it appears that Amazon has either (1) discontinued its policy of using shrink-wrap to protect its books or (2) it continues to have such policy but does not adequately supervise its shipping department personnel so that books will not be unnecessarily damaged. In either event, its efforts to protect books during transit does not appear to be as reliable as before.
Initially, I decided to order Peter Reinhart's outstanding book from Amazon after seeing it at a local book store. I placed the order in the usual manner and was somewhat surprised to discover that inadequate packing material was used. Because the book was not protected with shrink wrap, it slid back and forth within the delivery box during transit which caused a signifigant rip in the upper right corner of the dust jacket, slight damage to the corner of the book, and damage to the entire front of the dust jacket when it was polished by the friction of rubbing against the interior of the cardboard box during transit.
Alright, I know what you're thinking. It's a minor item. Just contact customer service.
I did that. The first email response that I received was that Amazon did not have any control over the use of plastic wrap and that it was up to the book suppliers to do so.
Since the manner in which earlier books were consistently wrapped in shrink-wrap and the wrapping appeared to be similar regardless of the publisher, the initial answer that I received from customer service made no sense to me.
I pressed on. I contacted Amazon's customer service again and explained the situation. This time, I was told that Amazon would send a replacement and was told "please be assured that this will be packaged securely as you expect."
This sounded good. I wrapped the first book, stood in line at the post office, and mailed it back.
When the second book arrived, it, too, was packed loosely with no protective shrink wrap. As a result, the dust cover is somewhat polished, but not as bad as the first one. The book, however, does not have the same appearance as a new, undamaged one.
I sent another email to Amazon's customer service and waited for a reply. None came, or at least none has so far.
I'm going to keep the book, and I am not going to waste any more time at the post office. Peter Reinhart has some excellent ideas and I'm grateful that he shared them. The text within the book is well worthwhile. When I buy another book, however, I'm going to buy it at my local book store.
