Heralded as “a modern day Jane Austen” by USA Today, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman has compelled and delighted hundreds of thousands of readers. Now, in her most ambitious work yet, Goodman weaves together the worlds of Silicon Valley and rare book collecting in a delicious novel about appetite, temptation, and fulfillment. Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech; twenty-three-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley; romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much—as her employer George points out in what he hopes is a completely disinterested way. Bicoastal, surprising, rich in ideas and characters, The Cookbook Collector is a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living. But above all it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.
Author
Hello, Good Readers! My new novel SAM is about a young girl's exuberance, wonder, and ambition as she comes of age. Jenna Bush Hager picked SAM for her Today Show book club and said, "Sam is about as perfect of a coming-of-age story as I have ever read." About me: I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu. I now live in Cambridge, MA and I own boots. In addition to writing fiction, I read a lot and teach on occasion. In my free time, I swim and walk around the city. I have four children, now getting pretty grown up. My oldest son (an economist) reads everything. My second son (a law student and grad student in political theory) reads mostly non-fiction, although I try to get him to read novels. My third son (a college student) loves science fiction, fantasy, and history. My daughter (a college student and aspiring human centered designer) enjoys biography and novels—but only if they have exceptionally beautiful covers! I read fiction, biography, history, poetry, and books about art. I also enjoy discovering new authors in translation. When I was a seven-year-old living in Hawaii, I decided to become a novelist—but I began by writing poetry and short stories. In high school and college I focused on short stories, and in June, 1986, I published my first in "Commentary." My first book was a collection of short stories, "Total Immersion." My second book, "The Family Markowitz" is a short story cycle that people tend to read as a novel. Much of my work is about family in its many forms. I am also interested in religion, science, the threats and opportunities of technology, and the exploration of islands, real, and imaginary. My novel, "Kaaterskill Falls" travels with a group of observant Jews to the Catskill Mountains. "Intuition" enters a research a lab, where a young post-doc makes a discovery that excites everybody except for one skeptic—his ex-girlfriend. A rare collection of cookbooks stars in my novel, "The Cookbook Collector." A girl named Honor tries to save her mother in my dystopian YA novel, "The Other Side of the Island." With Michael Prince, I have co-authored a supercool writing textbook! If you teach composition, take a look at "Speaking of Writing: a Brief Rhetoric." If you'd like to learn more about me and about each of my books, check out my website: http://allegragoodman.com/ Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllegraGoodman Or on Instagram: @allegragoodmanwriter And of course, you can check out the reviews I post here on Goodreads!
