Thanks for the welcome. It's nice to see some old and not-so-old friends.
My first was a paperback of Fannie Farmer, circa 1959. And I grew up under my mother's elbow in her not-great-but-not-terrible 1950s NYC kitchen (lots of frozen vegetables, but TV dinners only as a "treat" ). We had the advantage of having someone show us how to cook. We learned what ingredients look like, and how steps in a recipe should look. Nowadays fewer and fewer people have that. Even if they watch tv carefully, they don't get to see all the intermediate stages as food cooks. That's why I like the books Dorling Kindersley puts out: multi multi photos. Very few -- if any -- of the other books have that. Can you imagine what Bittman's book would cost if it had color photos of everything??
Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those other books. (See here for a review of one of them in this regard.) I just happen to believe that for someone starting out, if they're going to learn from a book, simple text and really good pictures are essential. The recipes have to be clearly written, and they have to work as written. Believe me, that is a huge problem (even in some of the books mentioned )*
*For those who do NOT know me: I make my living editing and proofreading cookbooks.