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The Cookbook Collector  By  cover art

The Cookbook Collector

By: Allegra Goodman
Narrated by: Ariadne Meyers
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Publisher's summary

Heralded as “a modern day Jane Austen” by USA Today, National Book Award finalist and New York Times best-selling 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, 23-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.

©2010 Allegra Goodman (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"If any contemporary author deserves to wear the mantle of Jane Austen, it’s [Allegra] Goodman, whose subtle, astute social comedies perfectly capture the quirks of human nature. This dazzling novel...is Goodman’s most robust, fully realized and trenchantly meaningful work yet.” ( Publishers Weekly)
"Fans of Goodman's lovely, nuanced novels have a treat in store with this tale of two sisters." ( Entertainment Weekly)
"Goodman is remarkably successful in creating rich, engaging characters and a complex story of love and identity." ( Library Journal)

What listeners say about The Cookbook Collector

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