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Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child Paperback – 1 Sep 1999

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Noel Riley Fitch (Author)
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Noel Riley Fitch (Author)
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Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child
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Product details

  • Paperback: 569 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group (1 Sept. 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385493835
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385493833
  • Product Dimensions: 15.5 x 3.1 x 23.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 984,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Great biography
By Jill Meyer TOP 500 REVIEWER on 12 Mar. 2010
Format: Paperback
I bought this book after seeing the movie Julie and Julia a couple of weeks ago. I really didn't know much about Julia and Paul Child - who were indeed a team as this bio points out - until reading Fitch's book. Her writing is excellent, and I'd rather know too much than too little about a subject. I just cannot understand any of the bad reviews of this book that have been written.

I have also read "Julie and Julia", which I didn't quite care for. I still have the third book, Julia Child's own "My Life in France" next up on my reading table. But to get back to Fitch's book, which ends before Child's death in 2004, it is a complete biography of all of Child's life up to the point it was written. Fitch incorporates most of Julia'a (and Paul's) family and friends and makes special mention of their WW2 duties in the OSS in Ceylon and China. Most of all, the reader can "see" how Julia McWilliams and Paul Child fell in love and created "Julia Child".

Fitch's work is a good addendum to the movie Julie and Julia.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating yet difficult
By A Customer on 26 Jan. 1998
Format: Hardcover
This fascinating look at a truly amazing woman is well worth the effort of slogging through what amounts to some pretty tough reading. The author seems to not only paint a thorough picture of Julia Child, "the woman", but also of the world itself as a backdrop to Julia's life. The level of detail is fascinating, but it will also put you to sleep if you are not careful. This is not a book to read in bed! The portraits of Julia as a priviledged child, Julia as a rascal of a college student, Julia as an international spy, and Julia as a young married woman, all leading up to the Julia I (thought) I knew today was wonderful. I don't know that I would re-read it anytime soon (unless I was experiencing insomnia) but I would recommend it for anybody with a strong interest in Julia Child.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
What a life! (But where was the editor?)
By A Customer on 15 Jan. 1998
Format: Hardcover
Julia Child herself is so interesting--her personality, her life, her accomplishments--I was captivated by this book. Ok, so the author did so much research she apparently couldn't bear to part with a single fact (and either there was no editor on the scene or that person was way too nice about the job), but if you keep moving (especially past the childhood), it's well worth the effort. I was pleased to have the full range of this remarkable woman's life laid out so I could reflect on how much she has contributed. What a life!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Missing that soupcon of elan!
By A Customer on 7 Nov. 1997
Format: Hardcover
While I must commend the author on her exhaustive and splended research, I came away from "Appetite For Life" more disappointed than pleased. Something is missing here. We have the facts, laid out in paragraph after paragraph replete with parentheses. But where is the spirit, the elan, the brio that is Julia Child? Where is the sensual, sexy soul of the man who cherished this gawky, coltish young woman and supported her in her career? They are hinted at, but never revealed. If only Fitch had given us the complete text of even one of Paul's delightful poems to Julia, it would have helped to capture that "thing" they had for each other. I was lucky enough to read the one about her warbling voice when it was published in the New York Times Magazine and I was so hoping to read it again here. In summary, do read this book - especially if you do not already know Julia's background. But, to really know Julia, watch the PBS reruns and read her own cookbooks!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Potentially fascinating subject matter made sludgy by mediocre writing
By G. Griffin on 7 April 2011
Format: Paperback
This book could have been much more . Mrs Child hardly emerges from turgid , often inconsequential details and stilted prose. A missed opportunity to dig behind the narcissistic post-war US food world. Saint Julia was an active player in that world but this reads like a very authorised biography! If readers want more insights and finer writing see Robert Clark's landmark bio of Jim Beard The Solace of Food.
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Appetite for Life: Julia Child
By A Customer on 18 Nov. 1997
Format: Hardcover
My pleasure in this book has been enhanced by having actually crossed paths with Julia Child several times, after myself having moved to Cambridge from her own native Pasadena. She strode towards me once in the crosswalk at Harvard Square and made a similar impression on me as a basketball player once did at UCLA: monumental yet agile. Later, while going over the pre-wrapped meats at her favorite grocery, Savenor's, I glimpsed her in the sanctum sanctorum of the butcher, standing capably at the chopping block flanked by several relatively small men in blood-stained aprons, while she manipulated the ribcage of a steer. Noel Riley Fitch manages to convey the remarkable physical and emotional balance at the core of her subject. As Paul Child's letters to his twin brother proclaim, his Julia is "characterful." From her pre-school days at Montessori (whose alumni include Anne Frank) where calm, independent exploration in a "controlled environment" taught her dexterity and peacefulness, to her early adulthood in China (which helped to sever the bond with too-predictable Pasadena), we learn how she came to challenge the food Establishment. Nor was she one to become embroiled in the brushfires of political correctness. I envy her the post-War days in Paris where she and Paul arrived as benign conquering heroes. Then the French were happy to teach those who wanted to learn (with the exception of one lackluster head of Cordon Bleu). Perhaps the Julia's of the world can always find the lights on for them. In spite of her approval of their French fries, Julia had too much of the spirit of adventure to confine herself to McDonald's-type outposts in foreign lands.Read more ›
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