A collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, her American go-between with the publisher as Child and her co-authors compiled "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I'm drawn to Julia's passion and enthusiasm, and this book is a good complement to her memoir, "My Life in France," which I also enjoyed very much. But there's more than discussion of a cookbook in these pages. There's an insight to the political atmosphere of the time, ie. McCarthyism and Julia's very low opinion of Republicans (they're not as far removed from today's Republcians as you might think). If there was one shortcoming, it's that there's not much other than a brief epilogue after the book book was published in 1961, even though their friendship lasted until Avis's death in 1989. It would have been nice to read a selection of letters from that period and see how their friendship endured.