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Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater |  | Author: Frank Bruni
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $8.90
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Seller: bloozbooks
Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 3488
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594202311
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9781594202315
ASIN: 1594202311
Publication Date: August 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2009: How a man with a lifelong battle of the bulge landed the job as the restaurant critic for the New York Times, the most influential job in the food world, is only half the story (more like a third, really) in Frank Bruni's brave, brutally honest, often hilarious, and truly endearing memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater.
Bruni struggled with over-eating since he was a boy growing up in a food-focused family in White Plains, NY. From adolescence through adulthood, Bruni was on the losing side of maintaining a healthy relationship with food, and eventually his inability to control his hunger--manifested in bulimia, convenience store binges, and bouts of sleep eating--defined his life. There aren't many books out there dealing with what it's like to be a man with an eating disorder. While Bruni's story is peppered with humor, his disgust at himself as he yo-yo's up to size 42 khakis at the Gap and endures years-long patches of celibacy leaves the reader aching in empathy.
Self-doubt about his appearance causes him to sabotage any chances at happiness as he makes lame excuses to postpone dates in the hopes that he'll drop those few extra pounds before he might have to reveal himself. And throughout the book he's banking on being slimmer in the future--whether it's a few days, weeks, or months--and sacrifices truly appreciating the present, even when he's holding prestigious jobs at Newsweek and the New York Times.
"I was in retreat, my weight a reason not to reach out or take risks. I'd deal with my love life once I got thinner.... Fatness simplified life and lessened the stakes. It put life on hiatus, making the present a larded limbo between a past normalcy and a future one. It argued against bold initiatives.... But while I wasn't trying to make things happen, they nonetheless happened to me."
There's a very funny account of how he worked with a photographer friend to digitally manipulate his author photo for Ambling into History in an attempt "to transform the round into the oblong, chubby into chiseled, gone-to-seed to come-to-Papa." When he saw the results of the final photo (the one that would be taped behind the reservation stand of many New York restaurants) his friend wondered: "When was the last time anyone at the publishing house saw you?"
And when he gets the tap to become restaurant critic and leaves his gig as the Times's Rome bureau chief, he begins a preparatory world-tour of eating research before entering an exhausting career of eating out seven nights a week, juggling multiple dining identities (with matching AmEx cards), and becoming one of "the most loved and hated tastemakers in New York." --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
The New York Times restaurant critic's heartbreaking and hilarious account of how he learned to love food just enough after decades of wrestling with his weight
Frank Bruni was born round. Round as in stout, chubby, and hungry, always and endlessly hungry. He grew up in a big, loud Italian family in White Plains, New York, where meals were epic, outsize affairs. At those meals, he demonstrated one of his foremost qualifications for his future career: an epic, outsize appetite for food. But his relationship with eating was tricky, and his difficulties with managing it began early.
When he was named the restaurant critic for the New York Times in 2004, he knew enough to be nervous. He would be performing one of the most closely watched tasks in the epicurean universe; a bumpy ride was inevitable, especially for someone whose writing beforehand had focused on politics, presidential campaigns, and the Pope.
But as he tackled his new role as one of the most loved and hated tastemakers in the New York restaurant world, he also had to make sense of a decades-long love-hate affair with food, which had been his enemy as well as his friend. Now he’d have to face down this enemy at meal after indulgent meal. His Italian grandmother had often said, "Born round, you don’t die square." Would he fall back into his worst old habits? Or had he established a truce with the food on his plate?
In tracing the highly unusual path Bruni traveled to become a restaurant critic, Born Round tells the captivating story of an unpredictable journalistic odyssey and provides an unflinching account of one person’s tumultuous, often painful lifelong struggle with his weight. How does a committed eater embrace food without being undone by it? Born Round will speak to every hungry hedonist who has ever had to rein in an appetite to avoid letting out a waistband, and it will delight anyone interested in matters of family, matters of the heart, and the big role food plays in both.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 53
 Born round and born to write November 20, 2009
G. C. Drummond (Tucson, AZ)
Frank Bruni's childhood and many of his adult years were dominated by an obsession with food and a paranoia about body image.
He glides through these years with humour, wit and a page-turning style that not only shed light on the delicate issues of overeating and self-love/loathing, but lift the lid on what it's like to work on one of America's top newspapers, the New York Times. (Ironically, he ended up being their restaurant critic.)
There's nothing new in how he learned to eat sensibly, but his journey is fascinating.
A clever, funny and very very touching read.
 A "sweet and delicious" read November 16, 2009
groupworker (Midwest United States)
I know it's a special book when I am convinced that the author would want to have dinner with me to learn why I enjoyed his book! Was he imagining a conversation with each reader as he wrote these words? Can we talk about eating a 1/2 gallon of ice cream and then spending 45 minutes on the eliptical? Or whether to take out the skinny jeans or fat jeans? Or...(you get the idea).
Frank's memoir was engaging and touching. While obviously obsessive and self-indulgent, perhaps those were the exact parts that best helped the reader relate to Frank's challenges with food, family, work, relationships and issues of self-esteem.
While he takes his work, family and friends seriously, Frank never takes himself too seriously and that's what keeps the reader engaged. He adds humor to both the sad & touching parts as well as to the memories that seem somewhat crazy in retrospect.
Perhaps the book felt more like several lengthy magazine articles, rather than a flowing memoir. However, it was a "juicy" read. I will definitely encourage a few other food obsessed friends to read Frank's honest journey - and hope that will also be inspired by his path to self-understanding.
A great read, a wonderful writer November 14, 2009
Kathleen A. Baxter (Minneapolis, MN USA)
I loved his insights and his ultimate understanding of how he is wired. It is inspirational, laugh-out-loud funny and a great read.
A top pick for health and culinary libraries alike November 13, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Author Frank Bruni was working as a bureau chief for the New York Times in Rome when he was called upon to become a restaurant critic - job that challenged him to not become fat again. This story of his struggle with food and weight (and with a new job that required him to taste food as a profession) makes for a fine memoir and is a top pick for health and culinary libraries alike.
A delightful book in many ways . . . November 6, 2009
David Zampino (Delavan, Wisconsin)
. . . with some flaws which may disappoint some.
First, let me state up front: Frank Bruni is two things. First, he's a very funny person. Second, he's quite the story teller.
Second, let me also state up front: For those readers hoping for "inside tips" on being a dining critic -- you're likely to be disappointed. Mr. Bruni's career as the New York Times restaurant critic really takes up only a small part of the book.
Most of this book is a biographical sketch of Mr. Bruni's life, as he states it, "Born Round". Here's a guy who loves to eat -- and always has, and thus, has continuously had to deal with the "battle of the bulge". Having an Italian background myself, I honestly found myself laughing out loud at the antics of his mom (and other relatives) as they planned major family feasts with an eye to detail that would have impressed Rommel in the desert! It is obvious to this reviewer that not only does Mr. Bruni love food; he dearly loves his family as well -- and cannot separate the two. (And this is NOT a criticism!)
Two mild criticisms: 1) At various points in his life, in order to attempt to control his weight, Mr. Bruni engaged in behaviors which ranged from the illegal (use of amphetamines) to downright dangerous, even self destructive (what appears to be borderline bulimia). While I certainly understand his struggles (I, myself, am, shall we say, round in the ol' tum!) his behaviors certainly should not be emulated. 2) Mr. Bruni spent far too much time in the book discussing his successful and (mostly) unsuccessful personal relationships. To me, this added nothing to the book (ranging from the "I really don't care" to "Way too much information".) The book would certainly been just as successful with this element.
But overall, a truly warm and delightful book. I wish all restaurant critics had his sense of humor and his storytelling abilities.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 53
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