Great new book: (2010-09-02) 
Well written and fun to read, this was a great kindle pick. I loved the character development and the references to food and recipes!

Engaging at times, annoying at others: (2010-09-02) 
The book's main characters are two sisters; let the Jane Austen comparison end there--Philip Roth might have been a better comparison. This book is well-written, technically, and could have been an excellent book. The author obviously spent a lot of time doing research, and does a good job with the dot com boom as well as describing the rare book world. Either one would have made a good core for a novel, but trying to synthesize both is perhaps overly ambitious. If that weren't enough there is a religious subplot that should have been completely excised from the book as irrelevant and ridiculously unbelievable. The narrative wanders between too many characters and subplots often seem like dead-ends, although the author tries to pull everything together in the denouement, which to me was the very worst part of the book. By the time I got there I had become so annoyed by the directions the story had taken that I had little interest in any summing-up, but I slogged through it to the last word anyway.

Not a work of art: (2010-08-31) 
There are two types of fiction that populate my personal library. Many are filled with characters I cannot bear to let go, with writing that forces me to pace slowly, to savor every thought or description as I nod in agreement, approval, recognition of truth, and dreading the approach of the end of the story. Such books are works of art. And then there are books like The Cookbook Collector that aspire to such greatness but lose me halfway, and I cannot wait for them to be over. They grab me, and then generate mounting impatience as I cannot wait for the coincidences to be done with and the plot threads to be neatly tied up. Allegra Goodman is a gifted writer who draws me to her through the appeal of her subject matter and locations familiar to me - technology, the addictiveness of research, Jewishness, food, alienation from family, Cambridge and its surrounds. These themes have been mesmerizing in her hands, as with Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls - but fail when crammed together between the same covers. Five stars for effort, three for execution - a summer read that could have been a work of art.
(PS - as a college student back in the day, I took a course in Philosophy of Art, and had to choose a work of art of any genre to defend as such in the final paper. My choice was Slaughterhouse Five. Not to compare at all to the book currently reviewed, but to demonstrate where the bar was set.)

Interesting, but undeveloped.: (2010-08-27) 
Goodman is a talented novelist with great powers of sensory observation, skill at writing dialogue, and an ability to create vivid characters who seem like distinctive individuals but also represent a time and place. I wanted to like this novel more, but I felt that there were too many characters, plot lines, and themes for its relatively small space. We have start-ups, environmental causes, the Internet bubble, September 11th, religious belief, the meaning of family (biological, adopted, estranged), cookbooks, a mysterious cookbook collector with a secret... oh, and let's not forget philosophy, Californian Arts and Crafts architecture, adultery, and wine. If Goodman wanted each of these themes and its attendant story lines to really pack a wallop, she needed to write a novel at least twice as long as this one; failing that, she needed to make some choices, cut back on the plot contrivances, and get us deeper inside fewer characters.

No Jane Austen: (2010-08-27) 
I have read just about all of Allegra Goodman's books, and had faith that this one would be a culmination of sorts. I felt impelled to buy the book 1) because I myself am an inveterate cookbook collector (over 1500), because I so enjoyed her previous books and lastly (though not central), the fact that I had a long Amtrak journey ahead. I mostly admired the way Ms. Goodman seemed to have the ability to immerse herself (and thus the reader) into "other worlds" in such an intimate and accurate way--the Hasidic Community of "Kaaterskill Falls" (of which I knew nothing) or the striving science community of "Intuition," of which I knew plenty (the backstabbing and appropriation of the work of promising grad students by"PI's,"etc.--so refreshing that someone would write about these travesties. One attribute of Goodman's previous books was that she wrote so much in so few words. In "The Cookbook Collector," there is the definite feeling of "padding." Perhaps there was the thought by publisher or someone that such overabundance of characters and words would elicit an Austen comparison. The seemingly gratuitous assortment of minor characters, meetings, situations, feelings--left one just too "overfed." On another note, I kept waiting for the appearance of the cookbook collector of whom we learned very little--and the confusion (perhaps perpetrated on purpose) as to whether he was the original collector or George himself, the antiquarian bookseller who acquired the collection and finally won the heart of the heretofore flighty, tree saving sister--now converted to the good life of Arts and Craft houses, special wines and ripe fruit. Inartfully enough, the successful [...] sister loses her money and her "me first" fiance in the dual crashes of 9/11 and the economy. And, the bookstore owner finally sees the merit in doing mitzvahs--contributes some of his microsoft earned money to tree causes. Each character is tempered by some of the traits they found tiresome in the other. Another gripe--too much name dropping that said, almost aloud, "Look what I know." I would have also appreciated a book that was not quite so literal (used to reading Rushdie and Marquez, and realize that's not Goodman's thing--still a little playful plot crookedness-flights of fantasy, dreams, etc., would have been refreshing). So, with all these demerits, one would think I disliked this book. Not so. I enjoyed reading it; hope to read her coming books (sans pretensions I hope). Goodman need not aspire to Austen--wonder who thought up the original simile--she is a good story teller who needs no padding to keep one interested in her central strength--unmasking human motivation.