Thanks, but I won't be getting that one. I already have a selected group of cookbooks, from a formerly more extensive collection, which I culled before we moved south.
The present collection more than suffices, and at any rate, I use recipes less and less these days.

I'm the Founder and Head of the Recipe Liberation Front.

More amazing is that with 2400 pages, they do not cover pastries, deserts or baking.

Not my style either. I like recipe ideas and I like a few how-to sort of references but my ideas of the way foods should be prepared differ with the experts and self-proclaimed experts. I can get most any information about how to prepare something with information found online. I have even thumbed through other persons' copies of Joy of Cooking and find much good information there.

Yes, really nice to have some reference books for some How-to's or a book of ideas but I cannot justify such an outlay if it does not include pies and pastries and such. Just what good is it then? No doubt there is good information there but how practical is it? Perhaps this is like some textbook set for culinary school students. Just not enough info up front to make me want to go to the link to find out.