A good cookbook can read like a novel: engaging, imaginative, even poetic. And like novels, the best cookbooks are not page-turners; those attractive but forgettable coffee table books are equivalent to fluff-filled paperbacks. No, when it comes to both food and fiction, the best books are those that pull you in with enticing, inspiring details.

Do these thoughts make you want to "feed your eyes"? If you read about food the way that other people read fiction, then The Cookbook Store is your literary oasis.

It's certainly not the finest bookstore in the city (Nicholas Hoare would win my vote for that one) but it is the only store I know of that deals soley in culinary lit.

Although packed into a small store, there's quite the range in topics, providing something for everyone: the professional and the home cook; the passionate entertainer and the first-timer; the food-literature addict and the magazine lover. There's even a selection of rare finds for the collector or long-lost recipe hunter.

(It's also brought in celebrity chefs such as Nigella Lawson, seen in the picture.)

Although it lacks the character and customer service of the quaint bookshop, their website is handy for avid readers. You can check out the bestsellers and new releases, read blurbs for books and interviews with authors, get tips on Toronto food shopping, and even order online (well, by email.)

Should you walk East on Bloor on your way to The Cookbook Store, you'll pass multi-floor stores like Nike, Pottery Barn, and of course, Indigo. (And, until very recently, you'd pass a Chapters, too.) Perhaps that's what makes specialty stores like this so special. They exist in little nooks, scattered about the city, and survive only as labours of love.

The Cookbook Store, 850 Yonge (at Yorkville), 416 920 2665

Photo Courtesy of The Cookbook Store