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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Allegra Goodman lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(Publisher Provided)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
If any contemporary author deserves to wear the mantel of Jane Austen, it's Goodman, whose subtle, astute social comedies perfectly capture the quirks of human nature. This dazzling novel is Austen updated for the dot-com era, played out between 1999 and 2001 among a group of brilliant risk takers and truth seekers. Still in her 20s, Emily Bach is the CEO of Veritech, a Web-based data-storage startup in trendy Berkeley. Her boyfriend, charismatic Jonathan Tilghman, is in a race to catch up at his data-security company, ISIS, in Cambridge, Mass. Emily is low-key, pragmatic, kind, serene-the polar opposite of her beloved younger sister, Jess, a crazed postgrad who works at an antiquarian bookstore owned by a retired Microsoft millionaire. When Emily confides her company's new secret project to Jonathan as a proof of her love, the stage is set for issues of loyalty and trust, greed, and the allure of power. What is actually valuable, Goodman's characters ponder: a company's stock, a person's promise, a forest of redwoods, a collection of rare cookbooks? Goodman creates a bubble of suspense as both Veritech and ISIS issue IPOs, career paths collide, social values clash, ironies multiply, and misjudgments threaten to destroy romantic desire. Enjoyable and satisfying, this is Goodman's (Intuition) most robust, fully realized and trenchantly meaningful work yet. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Emily is the classy and astute CEO of a San Francisco digital start-up about to go public in late 1999. Her lover, Jonathan, is launching his own tech company in Cambridge, and questions of trust and ambition are complicating marriage plans. Jessamine, Emily's younger sister, is studying philosophy at Berkeley, volunteering with gutsy eco-activists determined to protect California's redwoods, and working in a rare and used bookstore owned by control freak George, an early Microsoft millionaire. Goodman captures the fizz and folly of the dot.com boom and bust with wit and perspicuity, and brilliantly contrasts the cerebral seductiveness of the cyber realm with such sensuous obsessions as George's gourmet cooking and Jess' consuming fascination with the collection of invaluable old cookbooks George acquires under peculiar circumstances. The cookbooks harbor clues to a romantic mystery Jess stubbornly investigates, while encounters with two ebullient Hasidic rabbis induce increasingly disenchanted Emily to search for the truth about her and Jess' late mother. From mysticism to algorithms, IPOs, and endangered trees and souls, Goodman spins a glimmering tale, spiked with hilarious banter, of ardent individualists, imperiled love, and incandescent interpretations of the mutability and timelessness of the human condition.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Against the backdrop of the dot-com bubble, Allegra Goodman imagines the lives and conflicting worldviews of two sisters. ALLEGRA GOODMAN'S new novel has so many appealing ingredients. Where, then, to start the list? Perhaps, as with food labels, it would be best to begin with the biggest: an irresistible story. Then add four strong characters: two sisters, and the two men who orbit them. Then there's the narrative voice: sweet but not cloyingly so, nourishing but not heavy, serving up zesty nuggets of truth. And the spicing is piquant but not too assertive, thanks to memorable appearances by (among others) a Bialystok rabbi, a bookshop called Yorick's, a collection of letters from a long-dead mother and a tribe of tree-huggers. "The Cookbook Collector" might seem an old-fashioned concoction, with its obvious echoes of "Sense and Sensibility," Jane Austen's first published novel, which came out in 1811, its author listed simply as "A Lady." But although Austen's narrative forms the spine of Goodman's book - with two sisters of different emotional persuasions, wrong and right men, the seductiveness of real estate - this thoroughly modern story takes place at the brink of 9/11, in a world where old-school hackers have given way to a new generation of money-lusting geeks who draw venture capitalists like flies to honey. One of these sisters goes to M.I.T. to learn about life; the other reads Hume to understand human nature. Jessamine Bach, a heedless romantic, is 23 and a graduate student in philosophy; her older sister, Emily, is carefully analytic. At the tender age of 28, Emily, the M.I.T. graduate, is the chief executive of Veritech, a start-up company built around (appropriately enough) a "new paradigm for large-scale data storage and retrieval." She is, paradoxically, old-fashioned in her private life; in the midst of an insanely paced initial public offering, she finds herself yearning for marriage, a couple of children and the scent of fresh-baked muffins wafting through the house. Even while she's getting one company up and running, she's pursuing a new scheme for a password authentication system. And yet, in spite of her deliberate nature, she's unable to verify the integrity of the man to whom she's engaged. He turns out to be a self-serving cad, the sort of person who thinks that lies are "only futures waiting to come true." There's nothing patient about Jess, the sister who rushes headlong into love affairs that are half-baked at best. In fact, one of her roommates accuses her of attracting fanatics. But Jess is also the sort of woman who wanders into magical encounters. One of them takes place in a dim and dusty bookshop owned by a first-generation Microsoft millionaire. At the age of 39, George Friedman has "not aged gracefully." An eccentric, independent, rumpled, slightly paranoid, antisocial, competitive book dealer, he is unmarried, "although not for lack of trying. Admittedly, all the trying had been on the part of his girlfriends." George is predigital in his affinities, an excellent cook and a wine snob. He's also disappointed, fearful, handsome and grumpy, "hard to please, and difficult to surprise." In short, a dreamboat. Jess has a vivid, if somewhat refined, imagination. She accuses Emily of being a throwback to the 19th century, then corrects herself: "No. Eighteenth. You can be 18th," she insists. "I'll be 19th . . . early-19th century." I suppose some sisters really do talk like this - the ones who majored in English, anyway. If it feels heavy-handed, here's fair warning: In addition to Jane Austen, you'll be bumping into references to "Tristram Shandy," Berkeley (the philosopher and the city), Edna St. Vincent Millay, Chopin, David Hume and Henry James. And that's just in the first 20 pages. This is shorthand for a value system that cherishes literature and learning - as well as cozy corners with comfortable sofas, the better for reading and pondering. George's house in the Berkeley hills, designed by the prominent Arts and Crafts architect Bernard Maybeck, is just this sort of lair. George is fiercely proud of the meticulous restoration he has bestowed upon his home, lavishing money on every detail, down to the door hinges. He has fashioned a jewel-like - and treasured - retreat. His "great beamed living room glowed blood-red and deepest green and glinting gold." Showcased throughout are carefully framed antique maps, shelves full of first editions of poetry, platoons of typewriters. "George told his life history with objects," Goodman explains. I was ready to move in as soon as we crossed the threshold. As in the novel by "A Lady," we can only wonder why it takes so long for the obvious to happen. For his part, although he has "established bulwarks of skepticism against disappointment," George is consumed with yearning. "How sad, he thought, that desire found new objects but did not abate, that when it came to longing there was no end." The plot thickens when Jess meets a rabbi who lends her the money she needs to take advantage of a Friends and Family offering of shares in her sister's company. Rabbi Helfgott (whose name handily translates as "With the Help of God") loves computers almost as much as he loves the Torah; he created the first Bialystok Web page. Jess invests in Veritech, and the rabbi invests in her, with life-altering consequences. Rabbis are a good device for the unearthing of family secrets. Helfgott, who represents the magical interconnectedness in human relations, shares Jess's interest in abstractions: "Ah, the biggest question in Jewish philosophy is very simple: When?" It is, of course, a Messianic issue, but the question shadows every dimension of Goodman's novel. When will we meet our death? When will love come? When will we be betrayed? When will we find happiness? And when will we recognize the value of what we already have? A cache of cookbooks becomes the bonding medium for Jess and George. A mysterious, ashen-faced, gray-eyed woman with long gray hair - a veritable shade - arrives at the shop one day with a request that George inspect a collection of 873 cookbooks left to her by her uncle, a lichenologist. She had promised the old man she wouldn't sell his books, but she can't afford to honor that agreement. They've been stored in his kitchen: every cabinet and shelf, even the oven, is stuffed with ancient, valuable cookbooks. Clippings, drawings and notes, held with rusting paper clips, are jammed into their pages. George asks Jess to help him catalog and appraise the collection, but what he really wants is to cook for her, nourish her, feed her. Clearing the table after an elaborate dinner with his friends, George slips into a sensual fantasy of abundance. He imagines serving Jess succulent clementines, pears, strawberries, figs. He sees himself poaching Dover sole for her, grilling spring lamb, roasting whole chickens with lemon slices under the skin. "That would be enough for him." To which I can only add: me too. Such are the pleasures of early-19th-century sensibilities - and the delicious company of English majors and book collectors. You know how the story ends, of course. But it's the journey that counts. We're always told there are recipes for disaster and recipes for happiness, but where exactly those recipes are to be found is anyone's guess. In cookbooks hidden in ovens? In parables hidden in novels? If you're hankering for a feast of love, let yourself fall under the spell of Allegra Goodman's abundantly delicious tale. You won't leave hungry. A 28-year-old C.E.O. finds herself yearning for marriage, children, the scent of muffins baking. Dominique Browning, the author of the memoir "Slow Love," writes a column for the Environmental Defense Fund and blogs at SlowLoveLife.com.
Kirkus Review
Goodman (Intuition, 2006, etc.) shows two sisters grappling with romantic, professional and moral quandaries at the height of the dotcom boom.In the fall of 1999, Emily and Jess meet in Berkeley to celebrate Jess's 23rd birthdaybelatedly, because 28-year-old Emily is ten days away from the IPO of her data-storage company. Flaky philosophy grad student Jess is more interested in the sexy leader of Save the Trees than in buying shares of stock whose price, her sister assures her, "will go through the roof." Across the continent in Cambridge, Mass., Emily's boyfriend Jonathan, whose own startup encrypts web transactions, is confident that "we're all going to be gazillionaires." George is already rich, a "Microsoft millionaire" who used his fat dividends to launch Yorick's Used and Rare Books, where Jess works part-time; he uneasily but longingly eyes his young employee, whose idealism challenges his middle-aged cynicism. Emily, though more practical than her sister, is also an idealist, horrified when one of her partners turns a data-monitoring program into an electronic surveillance system. When she makes the mistake of telling Jonathan about it, however, he's not so scrupulous. Meanwhile, Jess helps George snag an astonishing collection of rare cookbooks, and dotcom stocks soar, then plummet as the bubble bursts in 2001. The formidably skilled and intelligent Goodman juggles multiple points of view to chronicle her characters' intricate maneuvers for advantage and satisfaction; she even throws a pair of Bialystoker rabbis and some long-lost relations of Jess and Emily into the bustling plot. Frequently laugh-out-loud funny but always fundamentally serious, the novel takes a clear-eyed look at the competitive instinct and the profit motive as they clash with our equally strong need for love and connection. In the wake of 9/11 (whose aftermath is depicted with refreshing astringency), a wedding affirms the presence of joy without denying the reality of loss: "They held each other, although nothing stayed."A witty, warm and wise look at the human condition in the digital age.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Crisp, accomplished Emily Markowitz is CEO of a data-storage startup in late 1990s California. Her sister, Jessica, is a messy, passionate graduate student in philosophy who's involved with the charismatic leader of Tree Savers and works in a rare-books store owned by the older, slightly grumpy George. George got rich off of Microsoft and now follows his first love, and he's impressed when Jess manages something brilliant with a woman who wants but doesn't want to part with an astonishing cookbook collection. Frantically different, the sisters are still bound by memories of the mother they lost as children; Emily strains to persuade Jess to invest in her startup even as Jess strains to see what Emily sees in her fiance, go-getter Jonathan, who has his own startup back East. Meanwhile, their father, who appreciates techie overachiever Emily more than wise Jess, is strangely resistant to the Bialystokers moving in next door. Alas, 9/11 brings not just family tragedy but the revelation of some uncomfortable truths and a realignment of relationships. Verdict Do these folks sound like types? They absolutely are not. Goodman (Kaaterskill Falls) is remarkably successful in creating rich, engaging characters and a complex story of love and identity that reads like life itself. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10.]-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One Rain at last. Much-needed rain the weathermen called it. Rain, drummed the little houses skyrocketing in value in Cupertino and Sunnyvale. Much-needed rain darkened the red tile roofs of Stanford, and puddled Palo Alto's leafy streets. On the coast, the waves were molten silver, rising and melting in the September storm. Bridges levitated, and San Francisco floated like a hidden fortress in the mist. Rain flattened the impatiens edging corporate lawns, and Silicon Valley shimmered. The world was bountiful, the markets buoyant. Reflecting pools brimmed to overflowing, and already the tawny hills looked greener. Like money, the rain came in a rush, enveloping the Bay, delighting forecasters, exceeding expectations, charging the air. Two sisters met for dinner in the downpour. Emily had driven up from Mountain View to Berkeley in rush-hour traffic. Jess just biked over from her apartment. Emily carried an umbrella. Jess hadn't bothered. "Look at you," said Emily. "Mmm." Jess brushed the raindrops from her face. "I like it." University Avenue's stucco and glass storefronts were streaming. Runoff whooshed into the storm drains at her feet. "You're getting soaked." Jess swung her bike helmet by the straps. "I'm hydrating." "Like a frog?" "You don't have to be amphibian to hydrate through your skin." "Get under the umbrella!" Jess had a theory about everything, but her ideas changed from day to day. It was hard for Emily to remember whether her sister was primarily feminist or environmentalist, vegan or vegetarian. Did she eat fish, or nothing with a face? Uncertain, Emily let Jess choose the restaurant when they went out to dinner. The two of them nibbled samosas at Udupi Palace, and Emily said, "I'm sorry I kept rescheduling." "That's okay." It was two weeks past Jess's twenty-third birthday, and the restaurant with its paper place mats looked small and plain for a palace, but Jess didn't mind. "Veritech has been insane," Emily explained, "and Jonathan was here. . . ." "Oh, Jonathan was here," Jess echoed in a teasing voice. "What did you do with Jonathan?" She often took this tone about Emily's boyfriend. The longer the relationship went on, the more serious it seemed, the more she teased. Jess didn't like him. "He was just here very briefly on his way to L.A.," Emily said. "The last couple of weeks have been-" Jess interrupted, "I've been insane too." "Really?" Emily realized she sounded too surprised and added, "Doing what?" "I'm taking the Berkeley, Locke, Hume seminar, and logic, and philosophy of language. . . ." Jess paused to sip her mango lassi. "And working and leafleting." "Again?" "For Save the Trees. And I'm also taking Latin. I think I might be as busy as you." Emily laughed. "No." She was five years older and five times busier. While Jess studied philosophy at Cal, Emily was CEO of a major data- storage start-up. "We're filing," Emily explained. "I know," Jess said in a long-suffering voice. Jess was the only person in the world bored by the IPO, and Emily loved that about her. "I got you a present." "Really? Where is it?" "You'll see. It's in the car. I thought we could take it back to your place so you can try it on." "Oh," Jess said cheerfully, which meant, "I don't mind that you got me clothes again." "You wanted something else," Emily fretted. "No, I didn't." "You did." "No! Nothing specific. Maybe a horse. Or a houseboat. That would be nice. And a photographic memory for verb tables." "Why are you taking Latin, anyway?" "Language requirement," Jess said. "But you know French." "I don't really know French, and I need an ancient language too." Emily shook her head. "That program seems like such a long haul." "Compared to going public after two and a half years? It's true." The sisters' voices were almost identical, laughing mezzos tuned in childhood to the same pitch and timbre. To the ear, they were twins; to the eye, nothing alike. Emily was tall and slender with her hair cropped short. She wore a pinstriped shirt, elegant slacks, tiny, expensive glasses. She was an MBA, not a programmer, and it showed. Magnified by her glasses, her hazel eyes were clever, guarded, and also extremely beautiful. Her features were delicate, her fingers long and tapered. She scarcely allowed her back to touch her chair, while Jess curled up with her legs tucked under her. Jess was small and whimsical. Her face and mouth were wider than Emily's, her cheeks rounder, her eyes greener and more generous. She had more of the sun and sea in her, more freckles, more gold in her brown hair. She would smile at anyone, and laugh and joke and sing. She wore jeans and sweaters from Mars Mercantile, and her hair . . . who knew when she'd cut it last? She just pushed the long curls off her face. Jess leaned forward, elbow on the table, and rested her head on her hand. "So, Emily," she said. "What's it like being rich?" Emily began to speak and then caught herself. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I haven't tried it yet." They hoisted Jess's bike into Emily's car and drove to Durant with the hatchback open. "Look at that," Emily said. She'd lucked into a legal parking space. Jess lived at the edge of campus, where fraternities sprang up in every style, from Tudor to painted gingerbread. To the north, the university rose into the hills. John Galen Howard's elegant bell tower overlooked eucalyptus groves and rushing streams, the faculty club built like a timbered hunting lodge, the painted warnings to cyclists on the cement steps: DISMOUNT. To the south, Jess's neighborhood boasted the best burrito in the city and the best hot dog in the known universe, Pegasus Books with its used fantasy and science fiction novels, People's Park, where bearded sojourners held congress at the picnic tables. Amoeba Music, Moe's, Shakespeare & Co. Buskers playing tom-toms, sidewalk vendors selling incense and tie-dyed socks. Students, tourists, dealers, greasy spoons of many nations. Jess's building was Old Hollywood-hacienda style: stucco, red tile, and wrought iron. Sconces lit the entryway, where the mailboxes were set into the wall. Jess paused, looking for her mail key. "Oh, well," she said. An elderly neighbor climbed the steps. "Hey, Mrs. Gibbs, how are you?" said Jess, unlocking and holding the door open. "Do you remember my sister Emily?" "We have not had the pleasure." Mrs. Gibbs was a petite black woman with freckles on her nose, and she wore a white nurse's uniform under her black raincoat. White dress, white stockings, green rubber boots. Mrs. Gibbs placed her hand on Emily's head. "May you always be a blessing." "That was strange," Emily whispered as Jess led the way up the stairs. "She's a friend." "What do you mean, 'friend'?" Jess tended to collect people. She was friendly to a fault. She went through little fascinations, and easily fancied herself in love. "Do you actually know that woman?" Emily's voice echoed in the stairwell. "Does she usually put her hands on people's heads?" Jess held open the door to her apartment, a real find, despite the rattling pipes and cracked tile in the bathroom. Eleven-foot ceilings, plasterwork like buttercream, closets deep enough to sublet. "She's lived in the building for, like, thirty years," said Jess, as if that explained everything. Her roommates Theresa and Roland lolled on the couch watching Wuthering Heights on Masterpiece Theatre. Theresa was studying comparative literature and writing a dissertation that had something to do with migration, borders, and margins. She'd grown up in Honolulu but couldn't swim. Roland was lanky and wore pleated pants and a dress shirt and gold-rimmed glasses; he worked as a receptionist in the dean's office. "Hey," said Jess. Roland held up a warning finger. "Shh." Jess led her sister into her bedroom. The walls were lined with overloaded Barnes & Noble folding birch bookcases. Piles of sweaters and Save the Trees leaflets filled a papasan chair. A battered wood table from the street served as desk for an ancient IBM desktop computer. On the wall hung a framed Ansel Adams poster, the black-and- white image of a glistening oak coated and crackling with ice. On her bulletin board, Jess had pinned photos of their father, Richard, and his wife Heidi and their little girls, Lily and Maya. "Maybe you should dry off before you try on the . . ." Emily was rummaging in her shopping bag as Jess peeled off her socks and her damp sweater. "I have something else in here for you." She produced a thick prospectus. "Initial Public Offering for Veritech Corporation, Sunnyvale," Jess read off the cover. "Right. You should read all of that. And also these." Emily handed Jess a wad of papers. "This is our Friends and Family offering. You fill this out and send a check here." She pointed to an address. "Why?" "You're eligible to buy one hundred shares at eighteen dollars a share. So you need to mail in a check for eighteen hundred dollars." Jess grinned in disbelief. "Eighteen hundred dollars?" "No, no, no, you have to do this," Emily said. "After the IPO, the price will go through the roof. Daddy's buying. Aunt Joan is buying. . . ." "Maybe they can buy some for me too." "No, this is important. Stop thinking like a student." "I am a student." "Just leave that aside for the moment, okay? Follow the directions. You'll do really, really well." "How do you know?" "Have you heard of Priceline?" "No." "Sycamore Networks?" Jess shook her head as Emily rattled off the names of companies that had gone public in 1999. The start-ups had opened at sixteen dollars, thirty-eight dollars, and were now selling for hundreds of dollars a share. "Just read the material, and mail the check. . . ." "But I don't have eighteen hundred dollars," Jess reminded her sister. "So borrow." "All right, will you lend me eighteen hundred dollars?" Emily lost patience. "If you'd just temporarily give up your aversion to money . . ." "I don't have an aversion to money," Jess said. "I don't have any. There's a big difference." "I don't think you understand what I'm giving you," said Emily. "I get only ten on my Friends and Family list." "So it's sort of an honor," said Jess. "It's sort of an opportunity. Please don't lose this stuff. You have ten days to take care of this. Just follow through, okay?" "If you insist." Emily's bossiness brought out the diva in Jess. "Promise." "Promise," Jess said. After which she couldn't help asking, "Do I still have to try on the clothes?" "Here's the blouse, and the jacket. Here's the skirt." Emily straightened the blanket on Jess's unmade bed and sat on top. The skirt was short, the jacket snug, and they were woven in a rust and orange tweed. The blouse was caramel silk with a strange lacquered finish, not just caramel but caramelized. Jess gazed for a moment at the three pieces. Then she stripped off the rest of her clothes and plunged in. "Oh, they're perfect," said Emily. "They fit perfectly. Do you have a mirror?" "Just in the bathroom." "Here, brush your hair and tie it back. Or put it up. Go take a look." Jess padded off to the bathroom and peeked at herself in the mirror, where she saw her own bemused face, more freckled than she remembered. The tweed jacket and the silk blouse reminded her of a game she and Emily had played when they were little. They called themselves Dress- Up Ladies and teetered through the house on high heels. Sometimes Emily would wear a satin evening gown, and pretend she was a bride. Then Jess would be the flower girl, with scarves tied around her waist. That was before their father gave away their mother's clothes. "Can you see?" Emily called from the bedroom. "It's really nice," Jess called back. "It's a Vivienne Tam suit," said Emily when Jess returned. "Thank you. I could tell by the . . . label." Jess sat down cautiously on her desk chair. Comically, experimentally, she tried crossing her legs. "You hate it," Emily said. "No! It's really very pretty." Jess was already undressing. "Just say you'll wear it once." "I'll wear it to your IPO." Jess pulled on a giant T-shirt and sweatpants. "You aren't going to the IPO. It's not a wedding." "Okay, I'll wear it to your wedding." Jess flopped onto the bed. "Don't you miss him?" "We're used to it." "I never would be," Jess declared, and added silently, Never in a million years. She would never deny herself the one she loved, or make excuses for him, either. She'd never say, It's complicated, or We have to be patient. Love was not patient. Love was not kind. It didn't keep; it couldn't wait. Not in her experience. Certainly not in her imagination. "What did Dad and Heidi get you?" Emily asked. "Just the tickets home for Thanksgiving. And they sent me pictures from the kids. See-Lily wrote her name, and a rainbow." Jess spread their half sisters' drawings over the bed. "I think these scribbles are from Maya. And I have Mom's letter here somewhere. . . ." Their mother, Gillian, had passed away when Emily was ten and Jess was only five. Fighting breast cancer, suffering from long treatments, alternately hoping and despairing as the disease recurred, Gillian had cast about for ways to look after her daughters when she was gone. She'd then learned that some patients wrote letters to their children for their birthdays. Jess and Emily each had a set of sealed envelopes. Jess pulled her letter from a stack of notebooks on the floor. "It's short." The letters got shorter and shorter. Reading them was hard, like watching their mother run out of air. "Dear Jessie," Emily read aloud as she smoothed the creased paper, "I am trying to imagine you as a young lady, when all I see is a five- year-old girl waving her little legs in the air-that's the sign that you're tired. I imagine you with your hair untangled. Your sister tried to brush your hair this morning and you wouldn't let her. I wish you would." Emily paused a moment, sat up straighter on the bed and continued. "Surely by now you are embarking on a profession. If you have not yet embarked, please do! "Ahem," said Emily. "I have embarked!" Jess protested. "A doctoral program is embarking." "She means working." "Philosophy is work. And I also have a job." By this, Jess meant her part-time job at Yorick's, the rare-book store on Channing where she did her reading in the afternoons. "I don't mean a job-" Emily read, and then stopped short. "She knew what you were going to say." Jess giggled, because Emily treated the letters like such oracles. "I don't mean a job. I am talking about a career, and a vocation. George Eliot wrote 'that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life'-but that was more than one hundred years ago. I'm hoping that you and your sister will set your sights a little higher." A little higher, Emily thought, as she placed the letter on the bed, and yet Gillian had been a mother, no more, no less. Would she have done more if she had lived? Much more? Or just a little? From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from The Cookbook Collector: A Novel by Allegra Goodman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.