The cookbook collector, by Allegra Goodman

The actual collector in the title is dead, and his unique collection of rare and valuable cookbooks, interleaved with his own notes, sensuous drawings of a woman, and menus, has passed to a niece who seeks an antiquarian book dealer to purchase them. This leads her to George, a 40ish dot.com millionaire, who has retired from Microsoft and runs Yorick's Books. Jess, a 25-year-old philosophy graduate student, floundering a bit in finding her way in life, takes a job assisting him. Her more successful sister, Emily, is engaged to Jonathan -- both, on opposite coasts, are heading up start-up software companies and have just become fabulously wealthy, on paper, from their companies' IPOs. The boom and bust of the dot.com bubble; 9/11; the birth of surveillance software and death of personal privacy; environmental activism; and the lives of these characters and others are intermingled like the collector's notes in the cookbook collection. As are the secrets from the past -- the identity of the mysterious woman in the lovingly drawn nudes; the family and background of Emily and Jess's mother, who died when they were 10 and 5 years old. Lovely writing in spots, particularly the descriptions of food and recipes. Delicious. 394 pp.