I'll review my raw food books first.
I bought these not because I'm a raw foodist, but because I just like eating fresh produce, and wanted some new ideas on how to eat them. There's a lot of ways to incorporate raw food techniques to make traditional food different or healthier.
One thing I like about all three of these is that they don't talk about meat eaters or cooked food eaters in an insulting tone, which is too common in the raw/vegan culture.
Raw By Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein
This book is almost all recipes. There's really nice big pics of every dish. Obviously, a Charlie Trotter book is going to have very complicated recipes using a lot of rare ingredients. So it's not something you would use to look for fast and easy weeknight dinner type things.
I've taken a lot of ideas from this book, but I've only made two dishes following the recipe. One of them good (tacos), one not so good (jicama-corn salad).
Living Cuisine By Renee Loux Underkoffler
This book has extensive chapters talking about the techniques and ingredients used in raw food preparation. It also has a lot of recipes, including desserts. No pics, though.
I've used a lot of the dessert ideas, and they've all been good. This book is how I discovered that avocado and chocolate go very well together.
Raw Food Real World By Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis
I've made a bunch of recipes from this book and they've all been really good. Especially the salads and smoothies/shakes. There's pics of every dish, and of the very hot Sarma eating various things.
The authors also talk about their "detoxing" and some other stupid hippy nonsense. Skip those chapters, trust me.