"This is the first book I've read by Allegra Goodman, though I thought her name sounded
familiar when I got the ARC. It should--she's a best selling author and a National Book Award finalist. But frankly, it was the title that pulled me in.
This book has a broad range--from millionaire dot.com execs to literal tree huggers, book
collectors and poetic references to food. It's about two sisters at its most basic, one a hugely successful workaholic, the other a drifting PhD candidate who just can't seem to settle down. And all the people they surround themselves with, willingly or unwillingly. Goodman is often compared with Jane Austen, and I can kind of see that with her deft complexity for weaving several disparate characters and times into one engrossing story. It is a love story on many different levels, as well as a "coming into one's own" kind of story that is very gratifying.
But I cannot say it better than a jacket-copy line from the ARC--this book is '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.'"
Come meet the author TONIGHT! 7:30 at our Colfax Store
