'Cookbook' a good story with too many ingredients

Two very different sisters are at the center of Allegra Goodman's new novel, The Cookbook Collector.

The story takes place 10 years ago as the dot-com world is spewing out multimillionaires. One of them is Emily Bach, the 28-year-old CEO of a California-based data storage company about to go public. Her long-distance boyfriend, Jonathan, is involved in another start-up on the East Coast. He is consumed with thoughts of how rich he'll become, which sits uneasily alongside Emily's more levelheaded plans.

Emily sees this time as a stunning new world of creativity: "With all the start-ups out there, I think this is a time like the Renaissance," she tells a reporter. …