Gift from truthteller.

The concept was fun, but I found the author's writing style lazy at times. I guess it comes from the books "roots" in a blog. Some of the metaphors were truly abyssmal.

Lent to Meg.

Received back from Meg.

Sending off to Mojosmom to start a very small "your dinner looks better than mine" bookray. Florafloraflora is next after MJM. From there? Well, I might suggest that flora offer it again on the "your dinner" LJ, in case there's more interest, but failing that, she may do with it as she pleases.

This book actually arrived yesterday, but I was too engrossed in "Project Runway" to journal it. Bad me! As soon as I finish the book I'm reading now, I'll get this read and on to the next person!

I zipped through this, and while I'm not sorry I read it, it left me strangely unsatisified. I have finally put my finger on what bothered me about it.

Powell didn't have fun.

One thing that I have always admired about Julia Child, a lesson I learned from her, is that food and cooking should be fun. But Powell took on a project that wore her out, required her to do things when she had neither the time nor desire to do them, interfered with her social and family life, and seemed generally to have made her miserable.

She needs to learn when to say, "Enough already!"

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed off to florafloraflora!

Julie & Julia has arrived! I'm looking forward to reading it.

Julie Powell found herself pushing thirty, in a dead-end job, and decided that the solution was to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. First of all, I stand in awe of someone who would make Oeufs en Gelée on a weeknight after work, so it was worth reading this just to marvel at that achievement. It made me realize I could be doing a lot more in the kitchen myself. I found her writing style engaging if not brilliant. Her friends sound like a dreadful pack of promiscuous hipsters and I know I'd never want to meet them in person, but the stories she tells about them are actually engaging.

Even if this weren't a good read (and I think it was) Julia Child was a bit of a personal heroine to me, and I think the fact that my mom cooked her recipes for my father when they were students had a lot to do with how I came to be, I wouldn't have missed this book just for the sentimental angle.

Thank you, FSR and mojosmom, for this ring. I'll offer it back up on LJ's "Your Dinner Looks Better Than Mine" community.

The ring goes on, first to texaswren and then fancyhorse. It went out today.

I picked it up on the way out of town this morning and got quite a bit read before we got to FW. I admire her ambition, but already, she's wearing me out!!! ;-)

I should finish this quickly and will pass it along.

Obviously, I didn't read this quickly. I did finish it awhile back, but I wanted to finish the book I was reading and send them both to Fancyhorse at once. Then, I didn't finish the other one as quickly as I expected. I am sorry for the delay.

I can't decide exactly how I feel about this book. As Mojosmom mentioned, I got frustrated with her for subjecting herself to such misery, but I suspect that during that year, she would have been miserable no matter what she was doing.

I was never very interested in French cooking, but you can't major in Home Ec without picking up a bit of knowledge. I was surprised at how familiar some of this was to me after all these years.

I wish she could have had more fun with it though.

I'll send this off on Wednesday.

I just received this book in the mail today from TexasWren. Thank, TW, and thanks to fsr44 for starting this ring, and to all participants. It looks interesting; I hope I'll enjoy it more than some of you did. Who's next? Should I send it back to fsr44 when I finish, or offer it on LJ's "Your Dinner" group again?

Ooh! I didn't realize I had had it so long! Now that it's a movie, someone else may be interested in it. I also have finished My Life in France and can send them together.

I enjoyed this story, and reading about all Julie's adventures, and misadventures, and how she overcame all obstacles, and perservered to accomplish her goal. I enjoyed reading about her blog, and her followers, and her growing fame. Being the prude I am, I did not particularly enjoy all the "f-words" and other words and expressions that were beyond my comfort zone. It was a good story, though, as I said, and I'd like to see the movie. I was relieved to hear that, as a PG-13 rated movie, it does not have much "cussing."

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

This book was released along with Julia Child's My Life in France, in front of Williams-Sonoma, a store that sells cooking equipment and kitchen utensils.


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Hello,
Please visit www.BookCrossing.com to make a quick journal entry, then pass the book along to someone else. We can all track this book's journey and the lives it touches forever more! Thank You!
If you do decide to join, please consider using me, FancyHorse, as the member who referred you.