Biographer Bob Spitz celebrates the centenary of the Julia Child’s birth in his new book Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child
Dearie
The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, by Bob Spitz, Knopf, 557 pages, $33
Biographer Bob Spitz combines deep research with intimate details to help the world celebrate the centenary of the birth of Julia Child (neé McWilliams), the gawky, 6-foot, 3-inch woman who changed the way Americans (and Canadians) eat. Child became famous as the warbly voiced hostess of vastly popular and prize-winning TV cooking shows, most notably The French Chef, which pretty much established public television in the United States and is undoubtedly responsible for today's Food Network. She was also, of course, the co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which profoundly changed the palates of North Americans. As well, she was a top-level secret researcher for a U.S. spy agency during the Second World War, and was involved in one of the world's great love stories with her husband, diplomat Paul Child.
Air
The Restless Shaper of the World, by William Bryant Logan, Norton, 398 pages, $28.50
Did you know that the average human, in a single lifespan, breathes 500 million billion times? A lot of attention is being focused on the Earth's oceans and forests these days, but apart from occasional warnings about the ozone layer or pollution, the largest, but least-visible, component of the biosphere – the air that we breathe – has been largely ignored. William Bryant Logan, Brooklyn-based arborist and author of superb one-subject books (Dirt and Oak), addresses the physics, chemistry, biology, history and art, including music, of the air. This eminently readable work weaves together historical accounts and science to present a fascinating account of the medium that unites all life on Earth.
Paris
A Love Story, by Kati Marton, Simon & Schuster, 196 pages, $24
Kati Marton, whose journalism used to enliven NPR and ABNC News, is the author of a number of bestsellers. She is also known for marrying celebrated men, first (second, actually) Canadian-born anchorman Peter Jennings and then U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who died in 2010. Marton is an old hand at loss. Her parents were Holocaust survivors who served time on false charges of spying for the United States. Marton and her sister were given to strangers, and raised as Catholics. Only later did she learn, by accident, that her grandparents died at Auschwitz. Marton has always sought solace in Paris (as have so many), and she returns there again after Holbrooke's death. But this candid memoir is also a portrait of two distinguished men who happened to be her husbands, as well as an adventurous and fulfilling life.