I will start with a book I mentioned in the "Loosing Pounds Sensibly.." Group.  

A well known chef, cook book author and New York Times columnist, Mark Bittman spoke recently (2009) about some encroaching health conditions, including sleep apnea which spurred him to alter his way of eating in order to improve his health.  One reference for this is 

also: 

I ran across this info, and thought it interesting.  I have one of Mark's books that I like in particular:

  The Minimalist Cooks at Home, Recipes That Give You More Flavor from  Fewer Ingredients in Less Time, copyright 1999 by Broadway Books, ISBN 0-7679-0361-7

I enjoy eating, and cooking when I have the time and energy.  The ideas of minimalism and simplicity appealed to me as I found myself struggling to come up with simple, easy and quick ideas for making dinner after a day at the office.  I subscribe to the idea that each food I put into a recipe should be of the best quality I can get, and be pleasant to the senses all by itself.  Then whatever is made with it will be equally good.  So Mark's approach here takes the basic ingredients, and suggests a variety of simple ways to make them different from the last time you made them.  This is great because the idea is to start with a basic food such as steak, and try preparing it with a variation you may not have thought of before like his "Steak with Butter and Ginger Sauce".  For each of the three seasoning ingredients, he suggests alternatives which you can adapt to your taste, what you have on hand, and any nutritional or dietary concerns you may have.  An example would be exchanging a different oil for the butter, red wine or lemon juice in place of the soy sauce in the original.  This style of recipe is carried out through the entire cook book, allowing for some great basics and suggestions to keep it interesting and try something new. It really teaches you how to cook and think about cooking, without being intimidating with long ingredient lists or complex techniques.  So the book is really about good eating and simple cooking.  Bravo to Mark for this book!  

I would still like to try some of his other books as well, but this one I can definitely recommend from my own experience.  

Chapters include: Salads, Soups, Pasta, Fish and Shellfish, Poultry, Meat, Vegetables, Sauces and Condiments, Desserts