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Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money.
Review: This book is more about bagels, than actually about MAKING bagels. I would recommend Joan Nathan's "Jewish Cooking In America" for a book that has a better recipe for bagels as well as SO much more to offer (heck, even if you are only looking for the bagel recipe her book is still a better way to spend your money).
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money.
Review: This book is more about bagels, than actually about MAKING bagels. I would recommend Joan Nathan's "Jewish Cooking In America" for a book that has a better recipe for bagels as well as SO much more to offer (heck, even if you are only looking for the bagel recipe her book is still a better way to spend your money).
Rating: 
Summary: The second edition is great......
Review: This review is about the _second_ edition of the book, which apparently is totally different than the first edition.I thought this was a great book for the history as well as the recipes. The first part of the book is various celebrities saying what kind of bagels they like - interesting, but not compelling. Then there are about 15 pages of bagel recipes - yes,_bagel_ recipes such as a basic one, blueberry (of course) and a Valentine's Day bagel, among other recipes. There's info on why a bagel is better than a doughnut for you (but you knew that already, didn't you?). The rest of the book is recipes for bagel toppings and things such as bagel stuffing. I wonder if I read the same book (again, I'm talking about the second edition) simply because there are recipes to make bagels and there's about 13 pages of vegetarian spreads, despite what another reviewer stated. There's stir fried bagels, garlic bagels, butterscotch bagels as well as my kids' favorite, pizza bagels. The spreads are amazing - the strawberry cheese bagel is much better than the soft spread Philadelphia Brand sells. The bagel cheese pastries are terrific. I recommend this book highly as it expands your horizons in regards to what you put on a bagel. I was always a cinnamon raisin with plain cream cheese kind of person, but that mushroom spread on an garlic bagel is heavenly. Buy the book and enjoy bagels.
Rating: 
Summary: More a tribute than a treatise
Review: This silly book is not for someone who wants to sincerely learn about the history and preparation of bagels. There are a few pages about the origins of the bagel, followed by a bagel recipe. I was disappointed to see that the very ingredient that makes bagel dough out of bread dough, malt, was substituted with plain sugar. And this in a book dedicated solely to bagels...! What follows is a "recipe" collection, taking up more than 60% of the volume, describing what can be spread and laid onto a bagel - you guessed it, pretty much everything. Most every recipe features cheese or some other "heavy" ingredient - why don't people understand that a bagel stops being a healthy food in the moment one spreads it with cheese or mayonnaise...?? Needless to say, I have not seen one single vegetarian recipe (besides the plain bagel itself). The rest of the book (about 25% of the volume - no kidding!) is a long list of bagel shops around the US. All in all, the only use of this book may be as a "gag" surprise for someone who loves bagels - then again, such a person probably already eats more calories than (s)he should, and so even more cheese-loaded recipes are not recommended.
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