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    Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater
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    Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater
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    Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater
    Audiobook9 hours

    Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The New York Times restaurant critic's heartbreaking and hilarious account of how he learned to love food just enough

    Frank Bruni was born round. Round as in stout, chubby, and always hungry. His relationship with eating was difficult and his struggle with it began early. When named the restaurant critic for The New York Times in 2004, he knew he would be performing one of the most watched tasks in the epicurean universe. And with food his friend and enemy both, his jitters focused primarily on whether he'd finally made some sense of that relationship. A captivating story of his unpredictable journalistic odyssey as well as his lifelong love-hate affair with food, Born Round will speak to everyone who's ever had to rein in an appetite to avoid letting out a waistband.

    "
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 20, 2009
    ISBN9781101079515
    Unavailable
    Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater

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    Reviews for Born Round

    3.5/5

    144 ratings17 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I debated over whether to give this four stars or five. I have zero complaints about it: it was a solidly written book that easily kept my attention the whole way through. If I had to explain my hesitation over giving it five stars, perhaps it boils down to a lack of a wow factor. This book is a bit like the equivalent of a really good dish of spaghetti & meatballs -- tasty, flavorful, even a bit comforting, but yet it's never going to be something you call exciting, exactly.

      Born Round is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek title. Ostensibly, it refers to a saying of his Italian grandmother's, something like, "Born round, you can't die square," meaning basically that people don't really change. In Frank Bruni's case, though, "born round" is also a bit of a lament about his natural tendency to love eating, and even overeating, resulting in a lifelong struggle (with battles both lost and won) to avoid a visibly rounded figure. I have seldom, if ever, read so frank (ha!) an examination of a man's body image issues.
    • 3/5
      You can tell Bruni writes for a living. His memoir is well-written and compelling. Anyone who's dealt with an eating disorder or weight issues can likely relate to Bruni's struggle with body image, harmful dieting behaviors, and food obsession. Foodies will appreciate the behind the scenes details and amusing stories about life as a restaurant critic for the biggest paper in the country. Bruni doesn't ultimately offer a solution or redemption, but rather shares his process of coming to a place of management and acceptance with his relationship with food and his body image. I listened to the audiobook of the memoir and enjoyed the listen.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating
    • 1/5
      Terrible - - don’t waste your time!
    • 4/5
      The story of a young man growing up with food problems. Plagued with deep-seated compulsions and eating disorders, Frank Bruni has always worried about his weight. This detailed memoir chronicles his struggles, failures and eventual stalemate with food. Follow him though his determined struggle with workout plans and his eventual job posting as the New York Times restaurant critic. A lively, witty, and imminently relatable story.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to. Not that my expectations were particularly low, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, but I guess I thought it would be a fairly straightforward memoir about a guy who got lucky in the food media industry, focused primarily on his time as restaurant critic for the New York Times. It was far more than that, however. Frank Bruni has battled his weight all his life and much of the book is devoted to his personal journey in dealing with (and not dealing with) that problem. For anyone who has issues with managing their relationship to food, the book would make great reading. Clearly for him to end up in a job as a restaurant critic, he was playing with fire but he takes that on board and manages to find a way of coping without sacrificing his health. A lot of the book centres on his relationship with his big Italian family which is a close one and naturally centred largely around food and eating. It's a warm, funny and touching book that provided real insight into the life of someone who for many is little more than just a "name". His recollections of restaurant reviewing and attempts to remain anonymous are worth the read alone.
    • 3/5
      Frank Bruno can write. I think I liked his story more than I liked him, but his book is definitely worth reading. An interesting tale, well told.
    • 4/5
      Frank Bruni, a writer for the New York Times, has struggled with food his whole life, swinging between chicken-wing binges and starvation diets. Self-conscious about his size at any size, Bruni's work and love lives are intimately intertwined with his complex relationship with eating, his great (and sometimes dangerous) passion. Becoming the New York Times' restaurant critic poses the ultimate challenge for Bruni: How to eat out for a living while maintaining a healthy relationship with food. This is an unusual, often funny, and redemptive memoir of a semi-socially acceptable addiction, one that anyone with a family that expresses love through food can relate to.
    • 4/5
      For a foodie, this is a great book to see behind the scenes of a food critic. I got lost at the beginning of the book as Mr. Bruin described his early life and the food history with and about his family. I started the book with the wrong expectation, that it would be detailing the life of a food critic. Instead, it was a biographical accounting of how Mr. Bruin gained and lost weight, and eventually ended up as a food critic. It held my attention throughout once I dropped my expectations and just enjoyed the book as it was written. I, in fact, stayed up until I finished the book, as the best part was at the end, when he truly went into the life of a food critic. I laughed out loud at some of his descriptions and could relate to some of his obsessions with food. All in all, this is a good book to read if you have any food compulsions or yo-yo diet, only to find yourself still overweight. I did find that the pictures never did show him as overweight as his writing seemed to indicate that he was, and in fact, thought he was a handsome man with a great appearance. Possibly this is an opening for another book to follow up "Born Round" , as to what psychological thinking was going on as he traveled the world as a journalist., eating his way through Paris and points beyond.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book as someone who struggles with food and loves memoirs this was the best of both worlds. I thought it started out a little slow and didn't know if I would like it but once it picked up it kept my interest throughout and I couldn't stop reading it. I would recommend this book. It describes finding your place in the world as a gay man, add weight issues on top of that, and things get even more complicated. The last part of the book gives facinating insight into the life of a food critic, who knew the strugles and "undercover operations" involved in becoming a well known food critic.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed listening to this book on CD. It's not life-changing, and some parts move faster than others, but I appreciated the author's honest voice.
    • 3/5
      The problem I had with this book is how he grossly over-exaggerates his struggles with his weight. The entire book he talked about how he constantly had to monitor his eating habits, which is what most of us do on a daily basis. I spent most of the book wishing for him to discuss more of his experiences as a NYT food critic. I did enjoy the stories about his mother and grandmother and their constant quest to keeping him fed, but the middle of the book dragged a little too much for my liking. It was a very quick read, and I did enjoy the pacing of the book overall.
    • 2/5
      This is absolutely not what I expected. It's a long, long, long tale of eating disorders, and lack of self worth, revolving around food, but not really in a good way till the very end. I'm glad I read it, but I wish I had known going in that it was a darker book than many of the blurbs portrayed it as.
    • 4/5
      A memoir about Bruni's life - leading up to, and including, his work as the New York Times's restaurant critic. This book was 352 pages, and felt like it, though some funny highlights (Mexican speed, his love of Tyson chicken nuggets) as well as a few poignant moments (his mother's cancer/death, his breakups) speckled the landscape of Bruni's travels - NY, CA, Detroit, Rome...
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Loved the writing, the vulnerability, the honest depictions of relationships, the food descriptions - everything about it.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! It tells of Frank Bruni's journey through food -- his relationship to it, how it affected his personal relationships, his body image (diectly linked to food intake and weight) and how he ultimately came to peace with it as a restaurant critic.Throughout the book Bruni's voice is genuine and honest -- sometimes painfully so, but always sweetly so. He's surprisingly funny, and at times can be a little snarky - which always makes for good reading.After reading this book, I realized Bruni is the type of guy you want to have a drink and a nosh with. This book would be a great recommendation for just about anyone.
    • 5/5
      Frank Bruni's new memoir Born Round chronicles the longtime New York Times columnist's lifelong struggle with food. Born into a large Italian family where cooking is a contact sport, Bruni begins to struggle with his weight as a child, and continues to struggle with it into adulthood and beyond. He tries all manner of fad diets and even eating disorders and drugs before discovering his holy grail for consumption in his mid-30s--eat food in small portions and exercise constantly. He finally has his weight and his life under control when he embarks on a great food journey--becoming the food reviewer for the Times. I loved this memoir, and I'm not usually a huge memoir fan. Bruni gives overeating and excess weight a very human face that anyone who has ever struggled to balance a love of food and weight can appreciate. The same wit that made his columns must reads in the weekly Times food section (and I don't even live in NYC!) make this a wonderful read. The book is at times laugh out loud funny, and at other times deeply emotional. It helps that Bruni has led a very interesting life and his tidbits about life as a reporter--particularly while on the campaign trail with President George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000--just lend more color to this already very colorful book. If you're looking for an enjoyable and fast read, I would recommend this book. However I will warn that the book contains material about eating disorders, so if you are sensitive about this subject, or fad dieting, you might want to avoid. Bruni does not advocate these things, but he is honest about his experiences.