50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Scientifically Proven Sale
  • Staff Top Fives of 2022
  • Best Books of 2022
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Harper C.: Five Book Friday: Uncanny Graphic Novels (0 comment)
We are in the thick of winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which means it's dark, damp, and chilly. Rather than escaping to stories with warmer, brighter climates, I personally want nothing more than to dive deep into gothic and uncanny fiction as the wind rattles my windows at night...
Read More»
  • Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: December 2022 and January 2023 (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Cookbook Collector

by Allegra Goodman
Cookbook Collector

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews
  • Read an Excerpt

ISBN13: 9780385340854
ISBN10: 0385340850
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$6.95
List Price:$26.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside
1Cedar Hills

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

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.

Review

"Fans of Goodman's lovely, nuanced novels have a treat in store with this tale of two sisters." Entertainment Weekly

Review

"Everything is rising or falling in The Cookbook Collector: internet stocks, the value of old books, men in love, women out of redwoods, and twin towers. Although Random House advertises it as Sense and Sensibility for the digital age, it is more a novel of ideas than of characters. Goodman's first two books, The Family Markowitz and Kaaterskill Falls, were thickly settled works of domestic fiction. Her last two, Intuition and The Cookbook Collector, are concerned with the worlds of work as well. In scope and theme, she is more Dickensian, though she remains, like Austen, concerned with love, friendship, and the difference between the two. Goodman delves into women's private lives in this novel, but with well-nigh manly scope, she also goes public." Anne Trubek, Jewish Review of Books (read the entire National Book Critic's Circle review)

Synopsis

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.

Synopsis

Goodman weaves together the worlds of Silicon Valley and rare-book collecting in a delicious novel about appetite, temptation, and fulfillment. Bicoastal, surprising, rich in ideas and characters, this work is about getting and spending, and about the substitutions one must make.

About the Author

Allegra Goodman’s novels include Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories. She is a winner of the Whiting Writer’s Award and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.AllegraGoodman.com or become a fan on Facebook.

4.6 5

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 4.6 (5 comments)

`
Rachel Coker , March 03, 2011 (view all comments by Rachel Coker)
A beautiful book with fully formed characters, diverse plot lines and honest reflections on the lives of women in their 20s. It's hard to explain how, but Allegra Goodman manages to weave in bits about high-tech start-ups, Jewish philosophy, rare books and extreme environmentalism, along with a dash of East Coast vs. West Coast elitism. There's romance, yes, but also plenty of action. I found the ending just a tad too fast, but this is one heck of a novel.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(9 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
john kendall , January 01, 2011
I loved the alternating points of view, especially while I was listening to the unabridged version of the book on my iPod. Goodman also captures the distinct climate of the country a mere ten years ago, just before the 9/11 terrorist attack, and personalizes how an event of this magnitude affects individuals. I thought of how Dickens used the same concept with the French Revolution in "A Tale of Two Cities."

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(9 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
Lissa Elhindi , January 01, 2011
I lvoed this book

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(9 of 18 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
Denise Morland , August 31, 2010 (view all comments by Denise Morland)
Wow - quite a book! The story starts out about 2 sisters, Emily and Jessamine. Emily is the oldest, smart and responsible she has life all figured out and is on the cusp of huge success with a startup, software company and in a serious relationship with her steady boyfriend. Jessamine is the flighty, younger sister still trying to find her way. She hops from one boyfriend to another and one cause to another, looking for a way to do good in the world. A simplistic synopsis for a deeply complicated, real, and honest book. This story is about sisters, dreams, and growing up. Its about wild dreams, heartbreaking devastation, and as the dust jacket so clearly states "it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays." Phew! This was, wow!, quite a book for me. The first 2/3 of the book were, honestly, boring. I'm not in the software world and I didn't pay much attention to the dot.com boom when it was happening. I don't understand the mind set of the kind of people who lost it all in crazy start-up schemes, so I just wasn't really interested in those parts. Jessamine was mildly more interesting, but it didn't seem like she was ever going to get her act together. Then, all the sudden, it started to catch my interest. As an unexpected love story began to bloom I found myself unable to put it down. Then the big climax came to a head and I was literally riveted, desperate to know the plot would shake out and where the characters would end up! In the end, the book was so real, with flawed people and life turning surprising corners just when you had it figured out. A beautifully written novel about finding your path in life where you least expect it.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(4 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
MarciaP , July 27, 2010
What a fantastic setting -- my old neighborhoods of Silicon Valley and Berkeley (that's almost enough to keep me reading) I love the beautiful descriptions. Very easy to read, fast pace, and that's good since now I'm in suspense and would sit up all night to find out who is the cookbook collector? What painful life lessons are ahead for these sisters?

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(7 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

View all 5 comments


Product Details

ISBN:
9780385340854
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
07/06/2010
Publisher:
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Pages:
394
Height:
9.75
Width:
6.50
Thickness:
1.25
Grade Range:
General/trade
Number of Units:
1
UPC Code:
4294967295
Author:
Allegra Goodman
Subject:
California
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Sisters

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$6.95
List Price:$26.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside
1Cedar Hills

More copies of this ISBN

  • Used, Hardcover, $10.50

This title in other editions

  • New, Trade Paperback, $16.00
  • Used, Trade Paperback, Starting from $5.95
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##