• The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry

  • Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School
  • By: Kathleen Flinn
  • Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
  • Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (207 ratings)

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The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry  By  cover art

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry

By: Kathleen Flinn
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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Publisher's summary

In 2003, Kathleen Flinn, a 36-year-old American living and working in London, returned from vacation to find that her corporate job had been eliminated. Ignoring her mother's advice that she get another job immediately or "never get hired anywhere ever again", Flinn instead cleared out her savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream: a diploma from the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is the touching and remarkably funny account of Flinn's transformation as she moves through the school's intense program and falls deeply in love along the way. Flinn interweaves more than two dozen recipes with a unique look inside Le Cordon Bleu amid battles with demanding chefs, competitive classmates, and her "wretchedly inadequate" French. Flinn offers a vibrant portrait of Paris, one in which the sights and sounds of the city's street markets and purveyors come alive in rich detail. The ultimate wish-fulfillment audiobook, her story is a true testament to pursuing a dream. Fans of Julie & Julia, Almost French, and Eat, Pray, Love will be amused, inspired, and richly rewarded by this seductive tale of romance, Paris, and French food.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2007 Kathleen Flinn (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Critic reviews

"I can never get enough of true stores about people who stop in the middle of life's journey to ask, 'What do I really want?' and then have the guts to actually go get it. Kathleen Flinn's tale of chasing her ultimate dream makes for a really lovely book - engaging, intelligent, and surprisingly suspenseful." (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

"The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is an engaging story about a fantasy fulfilled. It's Under the Tuscan Sun goes to cooking school." (Michael Ruhlman, author of The Soul of a Chef)

"Although I can't cook my way out of a sac de papier, I found this book a joy to read. It's a compelling story about learning to cook and learning to love at the same time, told with humility, humor, and passion." (Bill Radke, host of NPR's Weekend America)

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What listeners say about The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Autobiography of the Woman Next Door

First the good news: the narrator of The Sharper Your Knife... is excellent. An hour into the book I checked to see if she was the author. Unfortunately not. Without her I would have given up on the book half way through. So much for the good news.
Here is a book about a woman spending a lot of money and a little time to fufill her dream. Her dream seems to be not to cook or to learn to cook but to go to cooking school or maybe to write about going to cooking school. She attends the Cordon Bleu in Paris. She recounts ALL of her experiences with the school and the new culture and comes away with the profound insights of any high school foreign exchange student. The book is too long and in the left me asking why I should care about this story of someone I've never heard of who only has cliche emotional lessons learned. The writing is competent but often corny and unremarkable.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Cookbook

This is a French cookbook with a little bit of a story around it..... A very little bit of story. The recipe parts were just boring and unnecessary to listen to.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

liked it

This was a fun listen. I did fast forward through the recipes, but really enjoyed the view of cooking school through a student. Not sure I want to each much french food, but enjoyed the book.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring book

Did not like the book, many recipes through out, so boring , regret wasted a credit.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Definitely Recommend

I really enjoyed this book! It was a charming story with lots of great cooking tips and tricks! I didn't want the book to end! It inspired me in my own kitchen.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A fun and heartwarming memoir

A glimpse into the life of a culinary student in Paris. She doesn't dream of becoming a chef, so that particular stress isn't present. But she still wants to do well. Meanwhile, she speaks only a little French, and is far away from her friends, family, and boyfriend.

But the stories are fun and funny, mostly light, and all problems are eventually resolved.

The book also includes many recipes that I'm eager to try. They're in the included pdf, but the book is also bulked out a bit by having them all read aloud in the chapter to which they relate.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story

I love this story. So easy to listen to, and contains recipes I’d like to try.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book…

…reading about Kathleen’s time at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She has a will to learn and a natural charm. I have to wonder why she put herself through this without a working knowledge of French.

She gets by. We learn a lot, she writes nicely, and this becomes a charming recounting.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Makes me want/not want to go to culinary school

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't realize it had recipes in it until the narrator rattled off the first one. There's no sense in trying to decipher the recipe while she reads it - I downloaded and printed the ones I wanted. But the techniques are fascinating. This was written a while ago, and I wonder if the dishes prepared at the school are the same today. I looked forward every day to getting into my car and traveling to Paris during my commute.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Joyful Read!

This book was so enjoyable to read. The authors descriptions transform you to Paris and take you on a journey that your tastebuds will salvate to the very last page.

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