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Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-ye... read full description
Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-ye... read full description
reviews
Sep 29, 2010
Khaya
rated it: 
I was looking forward to listening to Allegra Goodman’s newest effort even though I was not a big fan of her last book “Intuition.” While I think the Jane Austen comparison is a bit over the top, I usually enjoy Allegra’s writing and I find her Jewish characters somewhat authentic or at the very least three-dimensional, which is unusual. My sister’s scathing review of this book did dampen my enthusiasm but I gamely put on my headphones and started listening, telling myself that I’m often less
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28 comments
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(24 people liked it)
Dec 31, 2011
Usha
rated it: 
I've finished only the first few chapters, and as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, I am amazed at the author's insightful description of a tech startup - though that is only one of the angles in the book. Enjoyable read so far, especially on a wet December afternoon!
3 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Sep 14, 2010
Laurel
rated it: 
Genuine, quirky and endearingly flawed
As a Janeite, it is impossible ignore the siren call when an author announces to the book buying world that her new novel The Cookbook Collector is “a Sense and Sensibility for the digital age.” Whoa! My first reaction was “this is literary suicide.” Why would anyone want to equate themselves to a beacon of world literature such as JANE AUSTEN?
It is impossible to know her personal motivations, but after a bit of online research, I can More...
As a Janeite, it is impossible ignore the siren call when an author announces to the book buying world that her new novel The Cookbook Collector is “a Sense and Sensibility for the digital age.” Whoa! My first reaction was “this is literary suicide.” Why would anyone want to equate themselves to a beacon of world literature such as JANE AUSTEN?
It is impossible to know her personal motivations, but after a bit of online research, I can More...
7 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Dec 23, 2011
Kathryn
rated it:
Having never read an Allegra Goodman novel, I was pleasantly surprised. This novel got excellent reviews and they were well earned! I love this book.
The book is set on both the west and east coast and to someone from the south, these may as well be foreign countries! I especially loved the Berkeley setting and Yorick's (the bookstore which plays a pivotal role in the story). The sisters, Jess and Emily, are wonderful characters and are so disparate in their views of their decease More...
The book is set on both the west and east coast and to someone from the south, these may as well be foreign countries! I especially loved the Berkeley setting and Yorick's (the bookstore which plays a pivotal role in the story). The sisters, Jess and Emily, are wonderful characters and are so disparate in their views of their decease More...
Mar 30, 2011
Meredith (Austenesque Reviews)
rated it:
As an Austenesque Addict that enjoys devouring every Austen-related novel that she can find, I have to admit that The Cookbook Collector is not a book I would normally read. It is only because the author was proclaimed to be “a modern day Jane Austen” and her latest novel, a modern day Sense and Sensibility, that this contemporary fiction novel found a place in my to-be-read pile.
Similar to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, this novel opens by introducing two very diverse s More...
Similar to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, this novel opens by introducing two very diverse s More...
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(1 person liked it)
May 24, 2011
Linda
rated it:
I enjoyed “The Cookbook Collector” but it was a bit too convoluted for me to keep all the subplots separate and meaningful from saving the trees to missing family history to ideas and implementations for new start up companies. The refrain that this story of two sisters who was like Jane Austin’s works was a stretch for me. You could find that similarity in many books that add a bit of romance with the life stories of two sisters living very different lives but tied together by the love for on
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5 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Oct 17, 2010
Dee
rated it: 
Sometimes the good thing about partaking in a reading challenge is that it makes you push your boundaries and read a book you normally wouldn't - I read the Cookbook Collector for just that reason. I'd seen it previously in stores, but it just never gained by attention enough that I read it. However, I'm glad that I did. Its a marvelous story about learning who you are and finding your place in teh world, about living each day as it comes and not putting off today what can be done tomorrow.
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2 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Aug 02, 2011
Sometimes a book starts out so brilliantly that reading it is a fantastic voyage, only to be brought up short by a less-than-stellar conclusion. Goodman has managed to turn that paradigm inside out, composing a novel so startlingly quiet at the beginning and so stunningly well turned out at the finish, that the conclusion doesn't seem at all posited by the beginning. Jess and Emily are a pair of semi-orphaned sisters whose mother died when they were small, and whose father has remarried and had
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Feb 12, 2012
Jane
rated it:
This was exactly the book I needed as I recovered from my knee replacement. It's a novel that centers around the relationship between two sisters whose relationship is defined by the fact that they lost their mother when they were young. Jess was five; Emily, ten. Their relationships with each other, their father, their friends and lovers is the widening web that creates the novel. One of the things I loved was the way in which varying interests, careers, and passions help create our sense of wh
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Feb 07, 2012
Nicole
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book. I think I was first attracted to the book because it paired two stories of polarized sisters each looking for the "correct" way to go about living. I felt deeply connected to the story of Jess whose whimsical nature spoke most to me, but felt the pull of Emily and Richard's logic-centred world that reminded me of my own upbringing.
Despite my overall attraction to the story, I felt at times Goodman spent too much time focusing on the inner-wor More...
Despite my overall attraction to the story, I felt at times Goodman spent too much time focusing on the inner-wor More...
Jan 06, 2012
Jen
rated it:
I picked this one up at an O'Hare bookshop before my last 4 hour flight. Albeit a quick read, it wasn't because I was devouring each page as you would hope for from a book with this title. Anyone who knows me would pointedly suggest I picked it up for the Jane Austen comparison declared on the back cover, but hand to God, I didn't even see that when I selected it. And to be honest, I don't quite see the similarites. Maybe the Austen-esque note is a bit of promotional masterminding, but nonethele
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Nov 04, 2011
Mary
rated it:
I was a bit annoyed at first when I started this book, because of the dust-jacket blurb comparing Allegra Goodman to Jane Austen. This is a bother when you start reading, because you invariably start drawing parallels, which is a distraction. So forget Austen, and forget the Sense and Sensibility comparison between Elinor/Marianne and Emily/Jess. In a modern novel, you don't get to tidily pair everyone up in the end as in an Austen romance.
The book is set in the dot com era of 1999, in More...
The book is set in the dot com era of 1999, in More...
Sep 12, 2011
Cj
rated it:
I saw this book at my local library, they had it on display as part of there "Readers Choice" picks.
It is about two sisters, mainly, one, Emily, who is successful and very well off. Very educated, has created her own company, and is a very great business woman. Very down to earth, takes risks but only when every possible thing to be thought of, has been thought of.
Jess, who is the younger of the two, who is studying philosophy, is a tree-hugger, and works part time in an an More...
It is about two sisters, mainly, one, Emily, who is successful and very well off. Very educated, has created her own company, and is a very great business woman. Very down to earth, takes risks but only when every possible thing to be thought of, has been thought of.
Jess, who is the younger of the two, who is studying philosophy, is a tree-hugger, and works part time in an an More...
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(1 person liked it)
Aug 29, 2011
Patti
rated it:
One reviewer described this novel as "abundantly delicious," and I couldn't agree more. When I read a book like this, it becomes the gold standard, and almost everything else pales in comparison. One chapter, which begins with the eating of a peach, is just the juiciest love scene ever but as chaste as the Jane Austen novel that apparently inspired this book. As the twentieth century draws to a close, two sisters with opposite personalities live in the Berkeley area. The older, Emily,
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(1 person liked it)
Aug 25, 2011
Samantha
rated it:
I *LOVED* The Cookbook Collector. Even if the book did seem a little techo-centric at times, you didn't have to be a computer programmer to figure any of it out. Perhaps I was able to easily identify with the sister because they are as different as my sister and I are--in temperment, character and success--though admittedly I never lived in a tree. (A friend and I did consider it, but then I found out I was pregnant and then, frankly, I had bigger problems than the trees.) At one point, Jess, wh
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Aug 11, 2011
Aleeda
rated it: 
It must be tough to be compared to Jane Austen by a reviewer. Unfortunately, it tempts each subsequent reader to do the same. I will confess to being a Janeiac, re-(re-re-re-)reading at least two Austen novels every summer.
The Cookbook Collector is a decent novel, but I did not find myself making such a comparison. Sisters Jess and Emily, one a contemporary student/hippie, the other a Silicon Valley CEO, are each searching for something missing from their lives. The sisters closeness, despi More...
The Cookbook Collector is a decent novel, but I did not find myself making such a comparison. Sisters Jess and Emily, one a contemporary student/hippie, the other a Silicon Valley CEO, are each searching for something missing from their lives. The sisters closeness, despi More...
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(2 people liked it)
Aug 11, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
I grow tired of reviews that say "This was good" or "This was bad"...so I keep coming back to giving my experience with each book. I keep trying that approach.
I first loaded "The Cookbook Collector" to my Kindle when it debuted, intrigued by the book's setting in Berkeley. I read the first chapter and then was distracted by something else, and didn't come back to it for a while. When I was in Carlsbad this past month I saw it in the stacks of new fiction a More...
I first loaded "The Cookbook Collector" to my Kindle when it debuted, intrigued by the book's setting in Berkeley. I read the first chapter and then was distracted by something else, and didn't come back to it for a while. When I was in Carlsbad this past month I saw it in the stacks of new fiction a More...
Jun 29, 2011
Susy
rated it:
I loved this book; I ordered it over a year ago based on a great review & then kept putting it aside for other reads until a friend gave it a glowing Goodreads review....So the book moved to the top of the 'to be read' stack and once I began the story I couldn't let it go. Part of the allure was the northern California setting: both Berkeley and the Silicon Valley with glimpses of San Francisco and the north coast. This is the story of two sisters who perhaps are destined to be close despite t
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Jun 14, 2011
Alison
rated it:
Interesting story that weaves two sisters different personalities and goals in life (Emily follows her father's wishes and goes into the sciences - computer science while Jess follows her heart and pursues philosophy) who come together to aid one another. Jess works at a collector's bookstore and becomes fascinated by a very old Cookbook whose owner is selling it (against her recently deceased father's wishes) to raise money. As Jess catalogues the recipes, she learns more and more about the f
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Jun 03, 2011
Kay
rated it:
Published in 2010, this story takes place between the autumn of 1999 and the spring of 2002, which immediately gives the reader the broader context of events in Americaagainst which the action is set. The novel is about two sisters – calm, rational Emily, who is CEO of Veritech, a software start-up company that is about to go public, and ardent, trusting Jess, a graduate student in philosophy, an environmental activist and a part-time worker in a rare book shop. My mind went immediately to Elean
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May 22, 2011
Felicity
rated it:
Trying to describe the plot of this book is difficult, namely because the plot (such as it is) revolves around two sisters, Emily and Jess. The other characters we meet are all related in some way to these two young women, and although the point-of-view is constantly shifting--sometimes we see things from the perspective of Emily's fiance, other times from that of her first love, for instance--in the end, we always come back to Emily and Jess. The cookbook collector of the title is elusive (de
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(2 people liked it)
May 08, 2011
Belinda
rated it:
If you like Maeve Binchy, but you like your characters to be a bit more deep and introspective, this is a great book for you. Set in the US during the tech boom-and-bust of 1999-2002, the storyline follows two sisters who are on very different paths. The elder, Emily, is a 28-year-old CEO of a start-up on the brink of its IPO; the younger sister is Jess, a 23-year-old philosophy graduate student with a knack for dating the wrong guys. Surrounding them are brilliant -- and I do mean literally bri
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Apr 14, 2011
Lindsay (Little Reader Library)
rated it:
This is an ambitious novel, dense with characters and ideas, portraying the relationship between not only main characters Emily, who is a hard-working, high-flying young businesswoman, and her younger more carefree vegan environmentalist sibling and philosophy student Jess, but also their romantic interests - Emily's fiance Jonathan is an equally driven entreprenuer, and Jess's boyfriend Leon, the driving force of a 'Save the Trees' campaign. Beyond them, we have a whole cast of further characte
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Apr 12, 2011
Linda
rated it:
This book turned out to be quite a disappointment. I had picked up and put it back down several times at the library, then it finally caught my attention as an audio book while I was looking for something to listen to during my commute to work. Bad choice. Should have gone with my first instinct and passed it by.
I did actually like the book in the beginning and contemplated it reading it in book form later on. However, by half through the discs, not only did I want the audio book More...
I did actually like the book in the beginning and contemplated it reading it in book form later on. However, by half through the discs, not only did I want the audio book More...
Mar 25, 2011
Anne
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 22, 2011
Shinelle
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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2 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 15, 2011
Emily
rated it:
Meticulously boring, or perhaps boringly meticulous, this novel reminds me of why I usually don't enjoy literary fiction that takes place in the here and now. The protagonists are sisters Emily and Jessamine Bach, who live in California in the heady days of the dotcom boom. Emily is the chief of a hot new software company while her younger sister Jess whiles away her time as a moderately successful grad student in philosophy and the undervalued girlfriend of various patchouli-scented jerks. Emil
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(3 people liked it)
Jan 15, 2011
Allyson
rated it:
I did not really like this book until about page 300 when the George and Jess story became interesting. And I did complete the book despite some predictability of the story line given her chapter/book headings displayed after the title page. She gave too much away right from the start, and the story hardly held up. I anticipated much better writing, disliked the slang and common language more appropriate to a mass trade book purchased for an airline or beach read, and a cannier plot so was di
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 09, 2011
Robin
rated it:
The intriguing title and gorgeous cover art were enticing, and the laudatory reviews comparing this to the work of Jane Austen made it a must read. What a disappointment.
Two sisters, Emily and Jess,are making their way in the harsh world of the dot com bubble. Their mother died when the girls were very young, leaving nothing expect a stack of letters to each of her daughters, to be opened upon their birthdays. This thin device seemed to accomplish little more than navel gazing.
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Two sisters, Emily and Jess,are making their way in the harsh world of the dot com bubble. Their mother died when the girls were very young, leaving nothing expect a stack of letters to each of her daughters, to be opened upon their birthdays. This thin device seemed to accomplish little more than navel gazing.
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(3 people liked it)
Dec 29, 2010
Deborah
rated it:
A decent bit of popular reading and topical, modern characters. Silicon Valley, Berkeley, and Cambridge(MA)frame a triangle of family and friends who are young, ambitious and about-to-be-wealthy.
Essentially the story of two sisters: a cofounder of a hot tech company; and a poverty-stricken grad student studying for a PhD in philosophy at UCLA. Throw in five men: a fiance, cofounder of a different tech start-up; a charismatic tree hugger; an old high school boyfriend; a bookseller re More...
Essentially the story of two sisters: a cofounder of a hot tech company; and a poverty-stricken grad student studying for a PhD in philosophy at UCLA. Throw in five men: a fiance, cofounder of a different tech start-up; a charismatic tree hugger; an old high school boyfriend; a bookseller re More...
