The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman

This novel is the story of two sisters and the people whose lives intertwine with theirs.

At 28, practical Emily is the CEO of a start-up technology company on the verge of going public. At 23, her younger sister, Jess, is a philosophy student and also involved in environmental causes. While Emily is rational and driven, Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily is the mathematician in the family; Jess works at an antiquarian bookstore. Set in 1999, the novel follows their lives over the course of the next three years.

This is a very sparse outline of the book and yet it is the best one I can give. Throughout the first 100 pages or so, we are introduced to Emily and Jess, to Emily's boyfriend, Jonathan, to Jess's boss, George, and to many other people. For awhile, I found myself slightly miffed at the way the novel wandered from one person to another. Why wasn't there more about the relationship between Jess and Emily? Who was the "cookbook collector" of the title? And just when I thought I was going to put the book down and not finish it...I was hooked.

The author has a lovely, lyrical way of writing. I lost count of the number of characters she introduced me to but found myself caring about each of them. Her explanations of life in and before and after the "dot.com" collapse were fascinating and sad and exciting, all at once. She wound recent past history (the presidential election of 2000, 9/11) in and around the characters' lives.

And just when I had given up on ever finding out anything about the cookbook collector, there he was. The cookbooks became as much a character in the novel as the people, just as real and just as alive.

This is one of those books where the characters won't necessarily stay with me for awhile but the way the author uses words will.