Synopses & Reviews
Who knows the ins and outs of romance better than a Harlequin editor? A surprising and exhilarating look into Patience Blooms unexpected real-life love story.
At some point, weve all wished romance could be more like fiction. Patience Bloom certainly did, many times over. As a teen she fell in love with Harlequin novels and imagined her life would turn out just like the heroines on the page: That shy guy she had a crush on wouldnt just take her outhed sweep her off her feet with witty banter, quiet charm, and a secret life as a rock star. Not exactly her reality, but Bloom kept reading books that fed her reveries.
Years later she moved to New York and found her dream job, editing romances for Harlequin. Every day, her romantic fantasies came trueon paper. Bloom became an expert when it came to fictional love stories, editing amazing books and learning everything she could about the romance business. But her dating life remained uninspired. She nearly gave up on love.
Then one day a real-life chance at romance made her wonder if what shed been writing and editing all those years might be true. A Facebook message from a high school friend, Sam, sparked a relationship with more promise than shed had in years. But Sam lived thousands of miles awaythey hadnt seen each other in more than twenty years. Was it worth the risk?
Finally, Bloom learned: Love and romance can conquer all.
Review
"A gratifying year spent tackling the art of French cooking....Indulge in this memoir of marrow and butter, knowing there is always a bitter green to balance the taste." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.
Synopsis
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's
Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.
Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.
At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia's stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver.
And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
Synopsis
New York Times Bestseller
A breakout teen author explores the true meaning of popularity and how to survive middle school in this hysterically funny, touchingly honest contemporary memoir.
I was inspired by [Maya's] journey and made a point of saving a copy of Popular for my sister, who starts middle school this fall. Maybe if I had read it when I was her age, it could have saved me from a world of hurt, or at least put that world in perspective.” Maude Apatow, New York Times Book Review
Can curlers, girdles, Vaseline, and a strand of pearls help a shy girl become popular?
Maya Van Wagenen is about to find out.
Stuck near the bottom of the social ladder at pretty much the lowest level of people at school who arent paid to be here,” Maya has never been popular. But before starting eighth grade, she decides to begin a unique social experiment: spend the school year following a 1950s popularity guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell.
The real-life results are hilarious, painful, and filled with unexpected surprises. Told with humor and grace, Mayas journey offers readers of all ages a thoroughly contemporary example of kindness and self-confidence, along with a better understanding of what it means to be popular.
Synopsis
Now in paperback-the format in which it's destined to become a reading group favorite-the most heralded and hilarious memoir of recent years:
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 crème brûlée.
The bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef" (Philadelphia Inquirer) is now a major motion picture directed by Nora Ephron, starring Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia, the film Julie and Julia will be released by Sony Pictures on August 7, 2009.
Synopsis
The bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of
Bridget Jones meets
The French Chef" (
Philadelphia Inquirer) is now a major motion picture. Audiobook read by the author and value-priced!
Directed by Nora Ephron, starring Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia, the film
Julie and Julia will be released by Sony Pictures on April 19, 2009.
The film is based on this bestselling memoir in which Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life-lived with gusto.
About the Author
Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Julie Powell has resided in one place or another in the outer boroughs of New York City for the past eight years. Currently she lives in Long Island City, New York, with her husband, Eric, three cats, and a snake.