Good this for Christmas but bought this for a friend that wanted to keep mine!! Only thing is in the original dough, they do not say what temperature or length of time to cook.This is a good basic recipe to start with. I think you can get braver with additions of ingredients which makes, to me, a better cookie. I added chopped fresh cranberries, coconut and a good handful of chocolate chips in one batch. Yum!Please do not waste your time or money on this book. I’m a fairly good baker and this basic recipe is just weird to me. My biggest issue is the dryness. Why is the basic recipe so dry??? The ratio of wet:dry ingredients is so off. If that’s your starting point then everything is just going to taste like plaster dust. Upset that I’ve wasted so much time, money, & ingredients on these pitiful recipes.I ended up returning this book. I glanced at it at my sister-in-law's hosue, but did not look through it thoroughly. Not enough new/different recipes for this cookie baker.I received this book a few years ago as a gift and it was packed away in a box of Christmas decorations. Kind of wish I hadn't found it. I made three batches of cookies early in the day, let them chill and started baking later. The results were *very* disappointing. The cookies were flavorless and very dry. Perhaps I'll manage to "save" them using frosting but I think I wasted a lot of good ingredients.I thought it was odd that there was no leavening (baking powder or baking soda) in the "basic" recipe. I also found that the recipe at the beginning of the book called for 2 cups of butter (!) and all the variations throughout the book specified 1 cup of butter. The 1 cup of butter seemed more appropriate with the ratios of other ingredients. I tossed the book in the trash, and if I can't salvage these cookies, that's where they'll be too.All of these cookies are the same base dough, which already makes for a bit of a problem when you're considering a double chocolate cookie and a pear mint cookie. Aside from the blandness, the biggest reason this book is horrible is how incredibly DRY all of these cookies are! I think it's the amount of flour she recommends and I've tried to doctor the recipes myself but nothing works. These cookies are beyond salvageable. Dry dry dry!!!My daughter got this cookie book ten years ago from my mother. Each year we would select 3-5 recipes and make a collection of cookies for our loved ones. As a young child, the first part of the recipe was something she could easily memorize and repeat. The small variations made it the perfect family activity for us. The cookies taste fantastic. Wonderful and crumbly and delicious!Seriously, you won't be disappointed with this book!! Great color photos of each terrific recipe!!!Some lovely tasty recipes for easy to make delicious cookies. My children loved helping with the mixing and even moreso with the cooking. The book would also make a nice gift for a young family!