aside from generalized cooking manuals like the professional chef and joy of cooking, I think there are two cookbooks I have that really stand out for me by covering their topics really well as well as providing outstanding recipes.
1)
the breakfast book by marion cunningham. I love most breakfast foods, this book has tons of amazing recipes in almost every category of breakfast items (quick breads, cereals, eggs, pancakes, sweet stuff, etc).
2)
daily soup cookbook is a really great book if you love soup. they go over the basics (stocks, spices, etc), but the great thing is many of their recipes start the same way and after making a few of their soups you can be creative and branch out. plus there are lots of high quality soup recipes and variations thrown in.