Dearie

The Remarkable Life of Julia Child

De: Bob Spitz

Narrado por: Kimberly Farr

It’s rare for someone to emerge in America who can change our attitudes, our beliefs, and our very culture. It’s even rarer when that someone is a middle-aged, six-foot three-inch woman whose first exposure to an unsuspecting public is cooking an omelet on a hot plate on a local TV station. And yet, that’s exactly what Julia Child did. The warble-voiced doyenne of television cookery became an iconic cult figure and joyous rule-breaker as she touched off the food revolution that has gripped America for more than fifty years.

Now, in Bob Spitz’s definitive, wonderfully affectionate biography, the Julia we know and love comes vividly — and surprisingly — to life. In Dearie, Spitz employs the same skill he brought to his best-selling, critically acclaimed book The Beatles, providing a clear-eyed portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential Americans of our time — a woman known to all, yet known by only a few.

At its heart, Dearie is a story about a woman’s search for her own unique expression. Julia Child was a directionless, gawky young woman who ran off halfway around the world to join a spy agency during World War II. She eventually settled in Paris, where she learned to cook and collaborated on the writing of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed the food culture of America. She was already fifty when The French Chef went on the air — at a time in our history when women weren’t making those leaps. Julia became the first educational TV star, virtually launching PBS as we know it today; her marriage to Paul Child formed a decades-long love story that was romantic, touching, and quite extraordinary.

A fearless, ambitious, supremely confident woman, Julia took on all the pretensions that embellished tony French cuisine and fricasseed them to a fare-thee-well, paving the way for everything that has happened since in American cooking, from TV dinners and Big Macs to sea urchin foam and the Food Channel. Julia Child’s story, however, is more than the tale of a talented woman and her sumptuous craft. It is also a saga of America’s coming of age and growing sophistication, from the Depression Era to the turbulent sixties and the excesses of the eighties to the greening of the American kitchen. Julia had an effect on and was equally affected by the baby boom, the sexual revolution, and the start of the women’s liberation movement.

On the centenary of her birth, Julia finally gets the biography she richly deserves. An in-depth, intimate narrative, full of fresh information and insights, Dearie is an entertaining, all-out adventure story of one of our most fascinating and beloved figures.

Deeply mixed feelings

If you want a glowing biography that shows this icon in an unfailingly positive light, this is NOT the book for you.

If you want to know more about Julia AND Paul before The French Chef and after the peak of that series, this is a great book. If you want to know more about the darker side of Julia (and it seems she did have one), this is a great book. It can be easy to get lost in some of the details, and the lists of names can be confusing. I do wish that the narrator had made a firm decision - to warble or not to warble for Juli's voice - and stuck with it throughout the book. I fully intend to read the book soon to clarify some of the things that lost me, but this lets me wait until I can get it from the library.

I am torn about this book. Don't get me wrong, I have listened to "My Life in France" and "Julie and Julia" and watched just about every PBS special ever made about Julia Child, so I thought I was familiar with her life. This book showed that those other titles may have been skewed more than I knew. While it makes her less of a shining hero, this book makes her more real. I do intend to listen again.

LOVELY Book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - much more than I'd anticipated. At first the narrator didn't "sound" enough like Julia for me, but it quickly didn't matter at all. The story of Julia's life was engaging and I couldn't wait to get moments to listen to more. Highly recommend this book!

I enjoy Julia on many levels!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

She reminds me very much of my aunt. Both were unusually tall for their time and both forged their own successful paths through a man's world. I think "My Life in France" is much more personal and enjoyable but this filled in a lot of spaces.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoy and relate to her joie de vivre. Sometimes we just plod into life head on without a lot of reasoning. Julia's positive outlook on life is very enviable.

Which scene was your favorite?

Not so much a scene as how she fashioned a new life for herself, especially when Paul started to "slip off the raft". I can only hope to be as involved and active into my 90's.

Any additional comments?

If you want to know her life story this is the book but if you want to know her read "My Life in France".

a bit long but endearing

the book was very long and went into a bit too much detail, however it is worth sticking with to understand the personality and humor of this iconoclastic woman. born into wealth and privilege, Julia Child led a fascinating life, having worked for the US foreign office in world war two in risky postings in ceylon and china. lacking direction in her life, she married a colleague and began the adventure as the wife of a foreign service officer which took her to France, Germany and Norway. in France she studied French cooking to which she dedicated her life. she was an early pioneer of educational television and a natural at it. she never accepted endorsements and did what she wanted on the television sometimes in disregard of popular norms or censors. one of the most interesting things about the book was the author's citing instances of her humor, which have long been forgotten by the viewer of her shows so many years ago. one ends up loving and admiring the woman for her courage and work ethic.

Looked forward to each listening session

The narrator's French was impeccable! Fascinating and thorough details of Julia's life, including the evolution of the culinary trends in the US, often with the mentorship and support of Julia. I adored her personality.

Thorough and Detailed

Having only read "Julie and Julia" and "As Always, Julia," this was my first full biography of Julia Child. I loved it. It was very detailed and covered her entire life, and I feel like I have a much better idea of who Julia was as a person rather than who she was as a persona.

I also enjoyed the narrative by Kimberly Farr, and while the book was long, I never found it boring.

Nice Addition to Julia Repertoire

Would you listen to Dearie again? Why?

Nope. It was good, but I've read a lot about Mrs. Child already and this was fairly long.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Dearie?

Nothing stands out. As I said, it was long.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Even if you love Julia, her voice grates on you after a dozen hours-- and so does the narrator's impression of her. But really very well done.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Of course not. No one who has a life can do that. Check the length.

Great book

Great book about Julia Child, her relatonship with family and her husband. She was a great cook.

great insignts

What made the experience of listening to Dearie the most enjoyable?

providing an insiders view into the development of the woman who became the beloved.Julia Child

Delicious read

Some of the content overlaps, of course, with that of her autobiography “My life in France” (which I had finished right before tackling “Dearie”), but this book covers her whole life and makes for a fairly delicious read, in my humble opinion.