What Molecular Gastronomy Book for Important Birthday?

I have an old friend who is a dedicated cook with a highly developed sense of fun. He has a high level of mastery and professional expertise in creativity. I'm thinking of giving him a cookbook from the realm of molecular gastronomy for a milestone birthday. I could use suggestions. I want something with recipes that are not impossible to reproduce. The Amazon reviews of Heston Blumenthal's books put me off a bit by mentioning that one would have to invest heavily in equipment to make any of the recipes included. Adria's books may be too theoretical. Myrhvold is too expensive.

If anyone has ideas about how to get him into Chef Cantu and Moto to do a stage-for-a-day, that would be FANTASTIC!

Ideas welcomed.

When you mention Myrhvold, are you thinking of the $400+ set of books, or have you seen his Modernist Cuisine at Home, which is about $92 at Amazon? This is more oriented to the home cook, but I understand does required some specialized equipment to be useful.