If someday you hear of a house sliding suddenly down the hill from Puuhala Ridge to School Street in Kalihi, it will be mine.

And the reason will be that my cookbook collection has finally gained momentum over the foundation of our hillside house.

I don't just have shelves full of cookbooks. I have stacks lined up against the walls of my home office. I have boxes in the garage. I have boxes in the downstairs storage area. I have new cookbooks piled on top of vintage cookbooks. I have files full of pages copied from cookbooks that I long ago parted with. I have handwritten notebooks full of recipes.

Then I announced in my column and on the My Island Plate blog that I'd be happy to take old cookbooks off other people's hands and, oh, my goodness, you people are much too generous! Even though I give anything I can't use to the Friends of the Library (who, by the way, also graciously allow me to look over their donations for anything I might not yet have one more temptation), I still have too many.

Cookbooks R Me.

Does it stop me from greeting new cookbooks enthusiastically?

No, not at all. One of the challenges of my job is deciding which books to keep in The Advertiser collection and which to rotate out. What might I, or a future food editor, need? What has historical value? What is so solidly written and researched that it will stand the test of time?

Recently, three books landed on my desk that caught my attention. You might be interested, too.

• "The Pleasures of Cooking For One" by Judith Jones (Knopf, $27.95). Judith Jones, 83, is legendary — cookbook author, editor to almost every major name in the cooking history of the mid- to late-20th century, the person who knew that Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" was destined to become a classic, and then proceeded to help make it one. Here, she writes a completely charming little tome about how living alone (she is widowed, having lost her husband and co-author, Evan) does not mean the end of culinary pleasure. She illustrates how to give every cooking session a first, second and third round (using leftovers to make more meals) and she offers a gazillion great tips. As cooking for two is completely beyond me (I cook for ARMIES, no matter how many I'm serving), I was quite interested in her ideas for how to rein yourself in.

• "Izakaya Hawaii, Tokkuri Tei Cookbook" by by Hideaki "Santa" Miyoshi (Mutual, $27.95). Wish you could re-create the small plates and traditional foods for which Tokkuri Tei and other Japanese taverns in the Islands have become famous? Here, Island izakaya pioneer Hideaki Miyoshi shares his secrets. To be honest, I don't expect to do much cooking from this book. I love izakaya food, but to embark on a path of learning such a specialized Eastern style in my distinctly Mediterranean kitchen is more than I can tackle at this late stage. Too easy to get great Japanese tavern food elsewhere. But there are some interesting departures here, such as, for example, an ahi "cheeseburger" made with deep-fried tofu, that tempt me. And if you have a yen to re-create "Santa's" Nori Chos (deep-fried nori nachos) or the famed "There's a Spider in Da Poke" crab appetizer, they're all here.

• "Hawaii's Best Quick & Easy Recipes" by Jean Watanabe Hee (Mutual, $14.95). Hee, author of a long series of "Hawaii's Best" recipe collections, floors me with her industry. Producing four cookbooks in a little more than five years darn near killed me, but she just keeps producing collections that detail for us the foods we love, the recipes we share with each other, the dishes we enjoy at family gatherings and potlucks and school events. This book is full of the kinds of recipes all of us love (even those of us who try to pretend we're "serious" cooks) — things that involve mixes and shortcut ingredients, products and techniques that keep most of the active work time to under 30 minutes. For this book, she scoured community and fundraiser cookbooks and sought the permission of the recipe donors to re-test, refine and streamline their recipes. Hee notes in her introduction that some recipes are easy but not quick, others are both. Paging through, I came upon one that stopped me: A deep-fried pork chop recipe similar to the one from Side Street Inn. Thank you, Jean!