My mom gave me several of these cookbooks from Sunset when I began working as an au pair in college. They were old and I kind of rolled my eyes, only to discover they're really quite good. This is one of my favorites, though not because I follow the recipes exactly. I'm an experimenter and they're a great starting point. Some of my specialty dishes originated from this book.
My father picked this up on a trip to Florence about 15 years ago (strange I know as it's an American book). He and his wife have made nearly all of the recipies in the book (and I've tasted many) and they're all fabulous. This past weekend we had the pasta with pancetta, tomatoes, onion and red pepper flakes. I've also had the panna cotta. both were outstanding. I had to get myself a copy of this book-amazon had it used for $4. Nice :)