Julie and Julia

365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

By: Julie Powell

Narrated by: Julie Powell

Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

The bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef" (Philadelphia Inquirer) that inspired Julie & Julia, the major motion picture directed by Nora Ephron, starring Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.

Nearing 30 and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell reclaims her life by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the span of one year. It's a hysterical, inconceivable redemptive journey—life rediscovered through aspics, calves' brains and cré me brûlée.

©2005 Julie Powell (P)2005 Time Warner AudioBooks

Critic reviews

"Hilarious and ferociously articulate. Powell wrote candidly and vividly about her antic adventures with Child's recipes... But perhaps more importantly, she wrote about food in a rich and raucous context, about putting pot-au-feu on the table through plumbing crises and existential desperation; about both Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom and the difficulties of finding marrow bones."—Entertainment Weekly

"Bracingly original, JULIE & JULIA is clearly the work of a writer who has reclaimed her soul."—People

"Powell is not a domestic goddess; she's emphatically, unembarrassedly a domestic mortal. But she is also a genuinely gifted thinker and writer about food."—Time

Renewed my will to cook again!

I loved the movie, but I really loved the book! Minus all the F-words. But that’s Julie, God love her! I really really loved that she narrated the book. I didn’t realize it in the beginning. The first 10 or minutes I thought who is this reading this book? She sounds scared to death! Of course when I saw it was Julie it all made sense. Who wouldn’t be scarred to open up their life, their marriage, their cookbook for all the world to see? And hear. Hearing Julie herself made me love her even more. I think she’s my Julia. Except when I die and go to heaven Julie will be with me whipping up something scrumptious together for the Lord’s supper table.

not a yummy meal after all

What did you like best about Julie and Julia? What did you like least?

I liked the cooking, however the way Mrs Powell speaks and acts towards her husband is sad, she treats him many times as a disposable item, her language also is way over the top and unlike in the movie she does not come across as likeable as the amy adams version.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

it was fine, not a great way to end the book, because it was almost like having a fantastic meal with no desert

What three words best describe Julie Powell’s performance?

over the top

Did Julie and Julia inspire you to do anything?

treat My own husband better

I liked it

I like to cook, so this was fun. The back story was interesting to see the triumph of an underdog.

Loved it!

After now listening to the audio book and seeing the movie, I am absolutely captivated with the life of Julia Child. While Julie & Julia focuses more on Julie, I believe the author does a great job expressing her affection of Mrs. Child.

I love that Julie Powell narrated the story as well. She does a great job!

Very Enjoyable!

I was surprised and pleased by how much I enjoyed this title. Most of the author's commentary was witty and funny, and only occasionally marred by the unnecessarily childish vulgar language that better suits a blog perhaps than a book.

My biggest problem is not with the author as author, but rather with the author as narrator or perhaps the lack of appropriate directing/editing which is characteristic of not only this audiobook, but most audiobooks based on any significant percentage of French vocabulary.

How much extra time and expense would it take to consult a French dictionary or even just a French person and get some phonetic spelling to permit French words to be pronounced with some resemblance to French?

The whole purpose of listening to an audiobook is to HEAR the text. This is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE when no attempt is made to pronounce an entire specialized vocabulary within the book correctly. Further, there is no point in recording a book with lots of French words in it if they are mispronounced--the author might as well use English words if she didn't need the French ones in the text-and if she did need the French words then she ought to have learned how to pronounce them correctly for the audiobook.

If people don't speak French they can at least look the words up when they see them written on the page, but for those who actually DO speak French, there is no way to solve the problem of figuring out a mispronounced word in an audiobook. I think the producer, director, editor, whomever ought to be responsible for making sure an audiobook with this much French vocabulary is comprehensible to those who listen and want to understand what they hear.

A different experience than the movie

I got is audiobook after watching the movie, which I enjoyed. The author is a great narrator, who could read audiobooks for a living. It took me a while to warm up to her, she has several character flaws that are not portrayed (or understated) in the movie. I came to appreciate her honesty, salty tongue and humor.

not quite the same as book

I read this book and although it was funny it wasn't the same as the book. It skipped around and left out things.

Julie and Julia perfectly performed.

Excellent narration, good pace, and great vocal range. I already loved this book and movie, the Audible completes the trifecta.

Thank You Julie (& Julia)

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to the story of Julie‘s 365 day project in her own voice. Especially poignant now that she has passed away. Definitely think that Amy Adams played a sweeter version of Julie in the movie but the real Julie’s courage, commitment, and bear it all honesty was well worth showing up for.

A good laugh

This book has induced several full-blown belly laughs as I listen with my headphones on, making my husband wonder what I could possibly be listening to. When I tell him it's about a woman who is cooking her way through a Julia Child cookbook, he looks nonplussed. The author, Julie Powell, reads her own work very well; her intonation and comedic timing are dead on. She is very irreverent ( I love how she refers to Julia Child as "JC"!) and does have a fairly foul mouth, but I have to say that I find this refreshing. So many foodie books seem to take themselves all too seriously. Like my favorite food writer Ruth Reichl, Julie Powell shows that she loves food but isn't a Food Snob. I can't wait to get back to the book as I potter around my kitchen.