The Cookbook Collector: A Novel - Hardcover

9780385340854: The Cookbook Collector: A Novel
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
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" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Allegra Goodman on The Cookbook Collector

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.

When I began my first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, the writers I admired most were Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Charles Dickens. These novelists managed to write brilliantly about character and also about community. What I loved about these artists then and now is the way they interleave points of view to explore human relations in all their complexity. Love, hate, self deception, hope, jealousy, ambition, admiration--so many feelings play themselves out in 19th-century plots. Of course, each of these iconic authors has a unique style. Imagine these three as Old Master painters. Dickens is Bruegel with his lively, detailed gatherings. Eliot is Rembrandt, illuminating her characters from within. Austen is Vermeer with her exquisite control, her limpid intelligence, and her fine wit.

To have a relationship with the past means to give and take, to enter a conversation with those who came before you, but also to maintain a dialog with the writers and readers who live now. Therefore, with each book, I’ve developed new inspirations. Tolstoy inspired me when I was writing The Cookbook Collector. I was fascinated by his use of dialog, his use of history as both subject and medium, his panoramic scope and his multiple points of view. The rhetoric of the dot-com era inspired me with its futuristic, almost messianic language. The novelist Kazuo Ishiguro inspired me, because his work is so powerful and so subtle at the same time. And the language of early cookbooks inspired me. I began to meditate on the purpose of recipes for food, for potions, for poultices, for great occasions and ordinary meals. Studying early cookbooks in the Schlesinger Library, I began to meditate on the difference between cooking from a recipe and improvising in the kitchen. This becomes a central question for Emily and Jess, the sisters in The Cookbook Collector–should I seek out rules, or make up my own formula for how to live?

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.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherThe Dial Press
  • Publication date2010
  • ISBN 10 0385340850
  • ISBN 13 9780385340854
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages394
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780385340861: The Cookbook Collector: A Novel

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780385340861
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2011
Softcover

  • 9781848875401: Cookbook Collector

    Atlantic, 2012
    Softcover

  • 9781848875395: The Cookbook Collector

    Atlant..., 2011
    Softcover

  • 9780739377758: The Cookbook Collector: Large Print

    Random..., 2010
    Softcover

  • 9781848875388: Cookbook Collector

    Atlantic, 2011
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0385340850-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 24.46
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0385340850-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 24.47
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover First Edition Quantity: 1
Seller:
Nilbog Books
(Portland, ME, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition (1st printing), This is a New and Unread copy of the first edition (1st printing). Seller Inventory # 034339

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 20.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0385340850

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 20.88
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0385340850

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 27.52
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Allegra Goodman
Published by The Dial Press July 2010 (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Signed Quantity: 2
Seller:
Bartleby's Books
(Wilmington, VT, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Signed Book in Great Condition. Signed By Author. Seller Inventory # 32139

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0385340850

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 29.13
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Allegra Goodman
Published by Dial Press, New York (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover First Edition Signed Quantity: 1
Seller:
Dan Pope Books
(West Hartford, CT, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. New York: Dial [2010]. First Edition. First Printing. Hardbound. New, in dust jacket, very fine/very fine in all respects (but for very small smudge on side edge). A pristine unread copy. Comes with mylar dust jacket wrapper. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. You cannot find a better copy. 0.0. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 0810-339

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 40.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Allegra Goodman
Published by Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover First Edition Signed Quantity: 2
Seller:
Dan Pope Books
(West Hartford, CT, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. New York: DIAL [2010]. First edition. First printing. Hardbound. New/New. A pristine unread copy, very fine in all respects. SIGNED and dated BY AUTHOR on title page in month of publication. Comes with an archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. Shipped in sturdy box. Smoke-free shop. Purchased new and opened only for author to sign. You cannot find a better copy. 0.0. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 0710-67

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 45.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by The Dial Press (2010)
ISBN 10: 0385340850 ISBN 13: 9780385340854
New Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0385340850

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 53.99
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book