The Cookbook Collector

Heralded as “a modern day Jane Austen” by

, National Book Award finalist and

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 bo......more

Heralded as “a modern day Jane Austen” by

, National Book Award finalist and

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,

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.(less)

Hello, Good Readers! It's a pleasure to meet you!

I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu. When I was a seven year old living in Hawaii, I aspired to become a novelist--but I began by writing poetry and short stories.

In high school and college I focused on short stor......more

Hello, Good Readers! It's a pleasure to meet you!

I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu. When I was a seven year old living in Hawaii, I aspired 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 o

Hello, Good Readers! It's a pleasure to meet you!

I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu. When I was a seven year old living in Hawaii, I aspired 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."

My newest novel "The Chalk Artist" tells the story of a young teacher, a chalk artist, and a boy fast disappearing into video games.

If you'd like to learn more about me and about each of my books, check out my website:

or find me on Facebook: (less)