Hands down The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. Written in an easy and friendly style, it's full of helpful information and great recipes. It converted my husband, my in-laws, and many of my friends. In spite of my ever-growing collection, it remains one my favourite and most-used recipe books. I'm so grateful for it.

I have three favourites!! The "Moosewood", "Rebar" and "How it all Vegan". You can't go wrong with any of these :)

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer- It's informative, but easy to read, and the author make an obvious effort to stay unbiased. It also provides a multitude of answers to the ever-present question "Why did you become vegetarian?".

"Skinny Bitch". It's entertaining & tell-it-like-it-is. It will change your life. I've been a vegetarian for 20 years and was re-motivated to spread the word & go vegan.

Best cookbook...Sarah Brown's Vegetarian Kitchen. (ISBN: 0563370378 / 0-563-37037-8) Recipes that are easy to follow with ingredients that are easy to find. The Cheese and Lentil Loaf is out of this world. Even non-vegetarians have asked for the recipe. Hands down the best "starter" book...and one of my all time favourites!

Skinny Bitch! Hands down, best book for a newbie! (Though I had to skip chapter 5)

If you love cooking there is no better cookbook to learn vegetarian/vegan cooking than The Candle Cafe Cookbook by the NYC restaurant of the same name that started the gourmet vegan restaurant trend in New York. It will teach you everything from simple veggie burgers, sandwiches, and soups to 5 star gourmet dishes like seitan piccata or ancho citrus grilled tofu. As a former meat eater no other book has ever given me more delicious ways to not only replace meat dishes in my cookbook, but to see and enjoy vegetables, fruits and grains in ways I never had imagined before.

Surprised no one has mentioned this one yet! Madhur Jaffrey's World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking. This excellent volume pre-dates her World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World by more than two decades, and still impresses today. Rather than pedantic re-hashings of vegetarian versions of American/European comfort foods (veggie burgers, macaroni and cheese, etc.), World-of the-East Vegetarian Cooking provides more than 400 recipes with cultural integrity. These recipes will keep any vegetarian interested and challenged, will introduce new ingredients, vary in complexity, and are healthful dishes created with whole foods in appealing traditional recipes from India and beyond. Included are recipes from Bali, Japan, China, as well as Middle Eastern countries. Additionally, the book itself is illustrated with lovely line drawings and makes a friendly read for someone just embarking on a vegetarian diet. Inspiration aplenty in this bountiful volume!

"Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman changed my life. The book provides compelling evidence on why your current diet does not work and is making you sick. The book then provides an easy to follow, healthy vegan diet, that is low-fat, satisfying, and based on whole foods. The diet is cleansing and will make you feel energized and happy. You will lose your addiction to unhealthy foods. When you are hungry, you will crave an apple rather than a doughnut. Strangely, becoming vegan is empowering rather than limiting. In my experience, it is much easier to be vegan than vegetarian.

The Flexatarian Diet by Dawn Jackson Blatner! She showed me how to cook hearty, varied daily menus that convinced my skeptical husband that we really could go vegetarian - and enjoy it! The concept of being flexible and occasionally eating meat eased the fear that we'd be locked into a possibly boring or rigid lifestyle. As it turned out, the book stimulated my inner gourmet chef and now I can wing it on ingredients and impress any carnivorously hungry person at my table!

No matter what my friend's primary reason for going vegetarian may be, I'd congratulate her and suggest "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. It taught me about the meat and dairy industries' cruelty towards animals, something I now refuse to continue to contribute to. And thanks to the nutritional guidance of "Vegan for Life" by Jack Norris and Virgina Messina, as well as the cookbooks and informative, supportive podcasts by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (The Compassionate Cook), I've been happily vegan for several months now - and don't plan to ever go back.

John Robbin's "May All Be Fed: A Diet for A New World" changed my life in college. Not only are there great vegan recipes, the book itself makes a compelling case for changing the way we eat. Some of my other favorites are Moosewood's New Classics, "Love Soup" by Anna Thomas and Heidi Swansons "Super Natural Everyday."

The book I always recommend is The Vegetarian Times Beginner's Guide. I think it may be out of print, but you can always find used copies. If someone is looking for Vegetarian recipes, I recommend How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman and Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson.

Best cookbook for vegetarian newbies is Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes by Robin Robertson. I recommend it to anyone wanted to give vegetarianism a try. It has recipes that are common to everyday eating but without the meat. A good book for helping to change one's eating habits.

Newbies do not need cookbook recommendations. There is Vegetarian Times and plenty of adaptable recipes to start with. I needed a book to explain the health issues and lifestyle. I started with Dr Neal Barnard, Reversing Diabetes, which helped me to understand how a Vegan diet would help my heath. I found I couldn't do the Vegan thing but rather opted for Vegetarian. It was difficult because there wasn't another book to guide me in my choices. I eat out a lot, and when I do cook I don't want a pantry with exotic ingredients. I soon became tired of veggie burgers, salads, pasta & a plate full of veggies.