For bread, I don't think you can get much better than Tartine Bread [1]. Chad Robertson takes you through making bread from just flour, salt and water by making your own yeast starter.
For general cooking, I will also recommend La Technique [2], its short and digestible (puns always intended) increments of learning that, while old, are fundamental and classic.
If you can work through La Technique and something like Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking [3] (Which is great, but, very dense) you could move on to (and invest in -- they really are expensive) Modernist Cuisine [4], for which I think you need a good basic education on the fundamental building blocks of cooking.
Looks like an awesome book (along with the others recommended on this site). Unusual for scientificly minded cookbooks to be affordable - the only other ones I know of are way out of my price range:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Fat-Duck-Cookbook/dp/0747583692
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-Cookin... (I notice the author of this book, Nathan Myhrvold's also mentioned in cooking for geeks)
For general cooking, I will also recommend La Technique [2], its short and digestible (puns always intended) increments of learning that, while old, are fundamental and classic.
If you can work through La Technique and something like Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking [3] (Which is great, but, very dense) you could move on to (and invest in -- they really are expensive) Modernist Cuisine [4], for which I think you need a good basic education on the fundamental building blocks of cooking.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8H0FNW
[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812906101
[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WTIW93C/
[4] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982761007
Now if he'd just dissolve IV and concentrate on the cooking...
http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-Cooking/...