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Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography
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68/99
Critics
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Volume
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Rating
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About This Book
An unprecedented behind-the-scenes view into the life of Anthony Bourdain from the people who knew him best When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. His impact was outsized and his legacy has only grown since his death. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain's life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain's longtime assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony's orbit—from members of his kitchen crews to his writing, publishing, and television partners, to his daughter and his closest friends—in order to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony's life and work. From his childhood and teenage days, to his early years in New York, through the genesis of his game-changing memoir Kitchen Confidential to his emergence as a writing and television personality, and in the words of friends and colleagues including Eric Ripert, José Andrés, Nigella Lawson, and W. Kamau Bell, as well as family members including his brother and his late mother, we see the many sides of Tony—his motivations, his ambivalence, his vulnerability, his blind spots, and his brilliance. Unparalleled in scope and deeply intimate in its execution, with a treasure trove of photos from Tony's life, Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography is a testament to the life of a remarkable man in the words of the people who shared his world.
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Reviews
"The transparency that Bourdain implicitly promised us through his writings and shows, we come to find out, was far more opaque ..."
"Bourdain's death in this narrative is inevitable, but the reasons for it are a mystery."
"The oral-history format makes for a rangy, sometimes self-contradictory, and roundly true-feeling portrait of a captivating person."
"Any Anthony Bourdain fan, of which there are many, will enjoy this thoughtful tribute to an impactful cultural figure."
"The book does, however, succeed as a revealing account of the making of a celebrity, following Bourdain as he crafted a mediagenic persona ..."
"A chorus of candid voices creates an engaging biography."
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