What books have you liked that met your criteria?
It can’t be your only cookbook—-the amount of butter will literally kill you—-and some of the recipes area bit dated (so many aspics!). However, the first part of the book focuses on techniques: chop an onion, roll an omelet, etc. The other part I like is how it demonstrates that you can “fork” a master recipe into many different dishes by swapping out sets of ingredients.
A lot of other cookbooks disguise the fact that most recipes are variations on a theme, and understanding that makes it easier to improvise with whatever you have left in the fridge.
Abuse of the term "literally".
Many recipes, especially classic french recipes, benefit from butter. It may be bad for your health, but it sure makes for nice sauces.
Julia Child is fun, because of all the background she gives for her recipes. She's an engaging writer.
My mother had a copy of Le Guide Culinaire by Escoffier (in english translation). It's a recipe book for pro chefs; many of the recipes are just one paragraph - you're supposed to know what "make a roux" means.
My mum was not a great cook - I have no idea what she was doing with a book on Cordon Bleu cooking on her kitchen shelf.
I think that cooking from recipes is kind of catch-22. Recipes seem to be most useful to people who already are adept at cooking (in particular cuisine and in general) but when you don't know how to cook recipes seem to be practically only source of information.
I think if you are already adept at cooking, know techniques, cuisine etc. then you will be able to judge the book on your own.
For example, if you are just starting up with Italian cuisine, you will be thoroughly disappointed by The Silver Spoon.
It is huge compendium of recipes, but it is very light on any kind of explanation of technique -- assuming the reader is already steeped in the Italian culture.
On the other hand it is very useful to me as one of the books to look for a little bit of inspiration when I just want to throw in something new. Just going through the list of ingredients is usually enough for me to imagine the process and reading the description is more of a confirmation that I actually understand what is going on.