The book is a very important and credible desciption of a sensitive young girl's struggle to come to grips with earlier traumas in her life. Her involvement with the theater and acting plays a central role in the story. The main character and her close friend are effecive and moving. Highly recomended and excellent writing.

A compelling story which brings one to a deeper understanding of the psychological effects of molestation. I highly recommend this book.

I choose this book after seeing it reviewed in the "New York Times." I gained a deeper understanding of a difficult topic by reading it. I highly reccomend it !

I began using The Vein of Gold about a year after I had begun The Artist's Way, the start of my self-development. If you don't want to do any assignments, you may want a different author. The key to Julia's method is DO SOMETHING.

The Artist's Way was good in many ways, but mainly for helping me create a discipline for myself at home. The Morning Pages are definitely an exercise in self-discipline, and they continue to be an essential part of Julia Cameron's format. I wrote Morning Pages daily for about three years, but stopped after I had been working as a web site copywriter/designer for almost a year. Then I began drawing regularly instead.

The perspective of The Vein of Gold worked better for me than The Artist's Way did. The artist's dates were easy since they didn't have to be done solo. My husband went with me, and we continue to have artist's dates regularly. (A big breakthrough for us was when we bought fingerpainting supplies. Fingerpainting was theraputic and fun for us.)

If you have a dream (being an artist, musician, whatever), take steps to make it happen. And start now.

I know a therapist who uses Julia's Morning Pages technique in her practice. Then I stumbled upon this author's name and her book "The Artist's Way" in Sarah Ban Breathnach's books. So, of course, I picked up the Artist's Way at the library and started my own morning pages. That was 3 years ago. What has happened since? Well, I stopped doing the pages after 2 months (I was "busy") and I've been kinda wandering ever since. Lo and behold I stumbled upon this book, bought it used at a library sale and am back to those damn (ha-ha) morning writings. Well, I must tell you that this woman is a genius. Not only have these pages been quite an inspiration and a positive flow for me, but the "assignments" she asks you to undertake are life changing. I am a much more positive person and that shows in my writings. Let me stress to you that I am NOT a writer of any sort, my creativity has not shown it's full colors yet (they are dim, but they're there)and I get writer's cramp and I whine about doing it, but I DO IT and am a better person for it. As they say, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." I guess I am ready for Real Life. Thank you Ms. Cameron.

The Vein of Gold goes deeper than the Artist's Way does. (AW was just the tip of the iceberg.) There is about 19 weeks of work in this book if you take your time. You "write your life to right it."

This book continues the practice of the morning pages and the artist's dates but also gives you more assignments to do and more time to do some of them. If you are on the creative path to recovery I would highly recommend you work with this book.

You can jump right in but you might want to do the Artist's Way first. I faciliate groups using both books and find that the group energy adds to the synchronicity and security of having the same processes at the same time.

There are lovely quotes and sharing processes within the book. The sections are called "Kingdoms" and you explore and delve into your life story in a manner you may not have thought of yourself.

If you are on the creative pathway and want to move forward in your development --get this book!

This is a beautiful book--gorgeous photos--but not one that I find especially practical. I've owned it for a while now and seldom reach for it.

There are little bios of each chef (Michael Lomonaco used to drive a cab--who knew?) and the occasional story. There are occasional boxes throughout that are fun (Julia tells you how to make your own truffle oil, how to select apples).

The recipes range from the easy and practical (a very nice recipe for peach tarts) to the obscure (fareki) to the out-of-most-of-our-league (a Jacques Torres chocolate structure).

Because it's a collection by *chef* not by cuisine, there is not a lot of coherence.

So all in all if you like cookbooks, it's great fun to browse, and you'll likely find something you want to try. If you want a practical cookbook, it is not useful.

This book is a must in any kitchen. It covers many of the basic recipies and even some of wonderful deserts that compliment any meal, such as Baking Powder Biscuits, Fried Chicken, Peach Tart, Buttermilk Fudge Cake, and so on. The lists of ingredients are the kind that you should be able to find just about anywhere. And yes, it does have recipies included that are more complex, and elaborate as well as variations for many of he recipes. She has included several sorbet, custards, herbed butters, to name a few.
She has very descriptive and precise with her directions to accomplish even the more complicated dishes that are included in this book.
It keeps with Julia's normal format of telling you exactly what equipment is needed to complete the dish, to wonderful photo's of almost each dish, without going overboard on the number of pictures.
I have found the tips that are included on so many of the subjects/recipes, quite helpful and informative.
The book also does not get overly wordy when she tells you about each of the cooks that are included in this book.
I have found this book a great asset to my kitchen, and it has taught me quite a bit.

This is by far one of the best and easy to follow cookbooks. The recepies can be complex, but the execution is very easy after reading some of the tips and techniques that are embedded throughout (something very few other cookbooks do). Julia Child at once strips the mystery of gormet cooking away through easy to follow directions and helpful hints while at the same time demonstrating respect for each of the chef's talents. Jim Dodge's buttermilk chocoate cake is the best cake recepie--it is light, moist and airy. I've successfully made it many times and have also altered it slightly by brushing each layer with gran marnier and then fill each layer with chocolate mousse and topping it with chocolate ganache and candied oranges (instead of the chocolate fudge frosting).

From The Palm Beach Post

Dr. Bonadio's book wheels us down the polished white linoleum hospital floors and leaves us in the florescent theater of life in the pediatric ER. From this stage he delivers ten piercing chapters on lives saved, on lives lost. Because children are the subject, it is hard not to close this book without a shudder, or a sigh, hard not to feel the deep luck of a simple day lived in good health. The ER setting serves as a crucible for Bonadio's clean prose and clear thoughts. His sentences are terse, sometimes truncated, pared down to their simplest elements. Bonadio handles the stethoscope and pen with equal finesse. Julias Mother is an astonishing achievement. His thoughts and chapters swing open like emergency room doors. All of Bonadio's stories captivate, from a pregnant teen's suicide attempt to a parent trying to deal with the grief of their drowned boy being futilely resuscitated. Bonadio clearly leaves the reader to understand there is more to medicine than pathologists labeling pickled parts. Inside the tissue and bone, is a soul. It is the doctor's job to help the souls stay in their delicate vessels-Spencer Reece, The Palm Beach Post, FL, copyright May 2000

An amazing collection of stories from a children's emergency room. Bonadio allows reader to see not only the gripping details of events but also his feelings about his patients and his work. Doctors are not often this forthcoming. I was especially taken with his awarness of the impression he was giving to anxious parents with his body language and facial expression as he worked over their stricken baby, deeply moved by his search for words to tell Julia's mother that her child had died.

I read this as part of a research project, but wholeheartedly believe that this book would be fascinating to any reader. Bonadio's skill as a writer is phenomenal. I hope he writes other books, even novels, in the future. My guess is that he will.

This is the book to read if you want to recapture your faith inthe medical profession. Dr. Bonadio's compassion for his patients isextremely moving; at several points in the narrative, I found myself on the brink of tears (all right, so I sobbed! who could help it?). Of particular interest to me was the chapter on the autopsies and how Dr. Bonadio learned respect for the human body and for the force of death. I also found the story of how he decided to become a doctor--through his father's own feelings of failure at being "just a janitor"--a very touching tale. It went a long way to explain how this physician has maintained a sense of selflessness. I felt privileged to read about his quest to find meaning in seemingly senseless and traumatic events, such as the death of Julia. Read it (hopefully before your next scary visit to the emergency room) and find inspiration.

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!

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.

Noel Riley Fitch's biography of Julia Child introduces us to a very complex, interesting and compassionate woman. What we learn in the bio is that Julia's passion for living and learning has been life long. Epstein's bitter, angry review of the book in The New Yorker magazine completely misses the point. When I want to find out about Julia's passion for food, I simply open one of her cookbooks and read it.

In the beginning, there was Mastering the Art of French Cooking, where Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louise Bertholle got together and made the art of Escoffier accessible to the average home cook. Somebody got Julia to do a couple of TV specials demonstrating her recipes, and this turned into one of WGBH-Boston's first great public television productions, The French Chef. This book is the record of the first few seasons of one of the world's first cooking shows.

It's not a great cookbook -- Julia has written three or four of those -- but if nothing else it's an archaeological gem of the culinary world. Organized not by recipe category but by episode, what we have here is a sort of reconstruction of a studio notebook on how to create a cooking show. An introduction describes the process of putting the show together, an occasionally-harrowing story of borrowed kitchens, technical challenges, and accidental stardom, while the recipes (first thirteen shows long since missing, sadly) give not just instructions but themes, even menus, the way Julia and her staff concieved them.

Yes, there are many good recipes in here, but that's not the main reason to buy this book. This book interested me because I'm putting together a cooking show of my own, and buying it just before taping my first episode served as inspiration and even a bit of a how-to book on the oddities of mixing TV production and food. Julia has written many books since, and much of what's in here can be found in more effective form in those books, but this is one of the few TV cookbooks I've seen that is truly a record of a cooking show, as opposed to a cookbook that happened to be written by the host of a show. For the price, it's certainly a worthwhile purchase.

My 30-something son stole my old, old hardcover edition so-o-o I bought a mass market paperback since I couldn't be without it. Now the trade paperback is out and much easier to handle in the kitchen. I've just transferred the notes made in my original copy. Obviously I highly prize this title just as I prize all of Julia Child's EARLY books, i.e. "Mastering the Art ...", Vols. I & II and "From Julia's Kitchen".

If you aspire to French cooking, I cannot recommend "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" enough, and you DO need both volumes (the great breads are in the second volume.)

But...if you want the most often asked-for French classics like Lobster Thermidor, Cassoulet and the classic desserts to use for your elegant dinner parties, this is a BETTER choice. It is slimmed-down, modernized, has photos and is the best of the best.

So it's easy to choose; want to learn and read about French cooking, I like the Mastering series better (even better than Jacques Pepin's book.) Want a handy reference for classic dishes for occasional forays into French cuisine? Choose this one.

I am not really sure about the audience and the purpose of the book... not true... I have got some suspicions and they don't go down that well with me...

The original edition (it was re-worked a little in the mid-eighties) was written for a British audience still suffering from food rationing (which continued until about 1954, the British won the war and lost the peace, and even unto this day any football game against Germany is billed as a re-enactment of World War 2) and from the lack of a national cuisine (no, baked beans is not the national British dish, just a watered-down version of Boston beans, and those are quite nice when properly done).

As one would expect, the book is addressed to those who know what they are doing in their kitchen and have all the time in the world ("roast the chicken in the usual way", all the vagaries found in Apicius, take such-and-such, it must be fresh and don't dare overcook the rice), but then someone who knows what he is doing wouldn't need the advice offered. (Except if they are British, of course, and have never tasted proper food.)

It must be literature, then, but it is very conscious of itself and its status as a classic, the references to ewe mutton are still there and are now references to "ewe mutton, should you ever have to deal with it", and that is that kind of self-conscious pretentiousness I just hate. The Guttuso illustrations are sadly missing, careless editing has seen to that, the references in the text are stil present as dangling pointers.

I bought this book shortly after purchasing her French cooking book. This book, in combination with the above mentioned French book and her Summer Cooking, are THE Elizabeth David books. No one who is serious about fine cuisine should be without these classics. The food is simple and stunning.

I've been carrying around my 1969 Penguin editon of Elizabeth David's book for over 30 years. It's now a wreck - it's been used so much! It is absolutely the best book I have read (and used constantly) that describes the art of cooking Italian food. Great descriptions of Italian (including regional) ingredients and really easy to follow practical menus. I was so delighted to learn that a new edition of this marvelous book (first published in 1954!) was available.

I included a number of recipes from this book when I recently cooked an 8-course dinner. The recipes are challenging, but the process for each dish was explained clearly. In the end, the dinner was magnificent. This is a book that will find a prominent place on the shelf of any gourmand or Francophile.

I thought that this book was wonderful. As a culinary student I bounce back and forth with ideas of what exactly I would like to do and with this book I can learn about each different job with such detail. Not only do you learn about the different jobs but they also have interviews with people who actually do it day in and day out.