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Contra Costa Times

Posted:
11/15/2013 12:00:00 AM PST

Updated:
03/21/2014 04:54:43 PM PDT

We encountered Palo Alto's Yangsze Choo, whose debut novel, "The Ghost Bride," was a hit with critics and readers last year, at an Authors Under the Stars fundraiser for the Walnut Creek Library earlier this month. She's already at work on another novel, but in the meantime, she is relaxing by reading cookbooks, she told us. "Right now, I'm reading 'Vietnamese Home Cooking' by Charles Phan of (San Francisco's) The Slanted Door," she said. "With some cookbooks, the recipe looks good until you try it. These really work. "I've been reading -- and cooking -- my way through the book."