No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain [$34.95]

The companion volume to the highest-rated show on the Travel Channel, celebrity chef and professional wiseass Bourdain crisscrosses the globe, showing us places both exotic (Hong Kong, Malaysia, Namibia) and not so much (Cleveland, South Carolina, Las Vegas) primarily through the food unique to their cultures. Unlike most food-travel personalities, however, Bourdain eschews high-end restaurants and remains on ground level, eating what the people eat at bistros, pubs, street carts, and in the wild, narrating his adventures with his trademark sardonic wit. More diary than travelogue, Bourdain’s book is a more congenial companion than either Frommer’s or Zagat’s, and the jokes are better, too.