Hello

Huge apologies for the lack of updates — Lists of Note is currently on hiatus while I write the Letters of Note book (due out May 2013.) After its publication, I shall turn the lights back on in here.

There is plenty more to come.

Thanks,

Shaun

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

On October 31st of 1960, in a letter to her editor at Alfred A. Knopf publishers, the great Julia Child included a list — seen below — of 28 title suggestions for her forthcoming debut cookbook. The last of her suggestions was eventually chosen.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published the next year, and went on to become one of the most influential cookbooks of all time.

(Source: Ian Pinnock; Image: Julia Child, via.)

La Bonne Cuisine Française
In Love with French Cooking
The Love of French Cooking
Cooking for Love
The French Cooking Master
Cooking Mastery
Mastery of French Cooking (No "The")
The French Kitchen
Food from France
France's Food
The Noble Art of French Cooking
The Master French Cookbook
Great French Cooking
The Compulsive Cook
Cooking is my Hobby
The Hobby of French Cooking
French Cooking as a Hobby
School for French Cooks
School for French Cookery
A Course on French Cooking
The Passionate French Cook
French Cooking for Fun
French Cooking for Love
French Cooking for Everyone
Cook for Your Self a la Française
Mastering the Art of French Cuisine/Cooking/Cookery

What I Won't and Will Miss

The great Nora Ephron passed away yesterday, aged 71, following a battle with leukemia that began in 2006. She had many strings to her bow, but most notably wrote the screenplays to some of the best loved films ever to grace the big screen, many of which she also directed and produced. She wrote the following lists — of things she won't and will miss — in 2010 and used them to close her book, I Remember Nothing.

(Source: I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections; Image: Nora Ephron, via.)

What I Won't Miss

Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 32 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox TV
The collapse of the dollar
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night

What I Will Miss

My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie

Einstein's Demands

By 1914, Albert Einstein's marriage to his wife of 11 years, Mileva Marić, was fast deteriorating. Realising there was no hope for their relationship on a romantic level, Einstein proposed that they remain together for the sake of their children, but only if she agree to the following list of conditions.

Mileva accepted them, but to no avail. A few months later, she left her husband in Berlin and moved, with their sons, to Zurich. They eventually divorced in 1919, having lived apart for five years.

(Source: Einstein: His Life and Universe; Image: Mileva Marić & Albert Einstein, via elcorreo.)

CONDITIONS

1. You will make sure:
1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
2. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, You will forego:
1. my sitting at home with you;
2. my going out or travelling with you.
3. You will obey the following points in your relations with me:
1. you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way;
2. you will stop talking to me if I request it;
3. you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.
4. You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.