Jackie Kai Ellis

Jackie Kai Ellis

After running a thriving design firm for several years, Jackie Kai Ellis closed her company and set off to Paris to pursue her life-long love of baking. In 2012, she returned to her home city of Vancouver to open Beaucoup Bakery & Café. Now, Jackie is telling her story in her debut memoir, The Measure of My Powers, narrated by the author herself. Below, Jackie recommends a list of books that inspired her journey.
Product list
  • A Stew or a Story cover art

    • A Stew or a Story

    • An Assortment of Short Works by M.F.K. Fisher
    • Written by: M.F.K. Fisher
    • Narrated by: Carolyn Cook
    • Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
    • Release date: 2016-06-16
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • "M.F.K. Fisher’s stories intertwined food and life in such a natural way that it would make you wonder if they were not just one after all. Her writing, so ripe and sharp, was the inspiration behind my own book, The Measure Of My Powers."
  • Letter to My Daughter cover art

    • Letter to My Daughter

    • Written by: Maya Angelou
    • Narrated by: Maya Angelou
    • Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins
    • Release date: 2008-10-13
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings
    • "When I listened to this book, narrated by Dr. Angelou herself, I loved it. I loved her voice: smooth and grounded, like a tree beside water. And I loved learning about a woman who, through her experiences, had earned the wisdom she imparted."
  • The Year of Magical Thinking cover art

    • The Year of Magical Thinking

    • Written by: Joan Didion
    • Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
    • Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
    • Release date: 2005-09-30
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 124 ratings
    • "A stunning and heartbreaking story of loss. Joan Didion writes, as she did, in a journalistic style making it even more haunting, reminding me of my own moments of grief and the objective detachment I needed to summon the courage to 'look.'"
  • A Moveable Feast cover art

    • A Moveable Feast

    • The Restored Edition
    • Written by: Ernest Hemingway
    • Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
    • Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
    • Release date: 2009-07-14
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 32 ratings
    • "In Paris, I still see glimpses of Hemingway lost in scribbled pages or big cafés. I read this in the months before first moving to Paris, as if it were a primer on a city whose light evaded me. And now Paris belongs to me as deeply as it did to him."
  • My Life in France cover art

    • My Life in France

    • Written by: Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme
    • Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
    • Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
    • Release date: 2006-04-14
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
    • "Before moving to Paris, or studying pastry, I played this audiobook while baking in my teeny kitchen for hours, utterly inspired by this bold woman searching for her place in a new world of gastronomy. It was the start of a dream come true."
  • Le Petit Prince cover art

    • Le Petit Prince

    • Written by: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
    • Narrated by: Bernard Giraudeau
    • Length: 1 hr and 48 mins
    • Release date: 2015-06-01
    • Language: French
    • 5 out of 5 stars 118 ratings
    • "Every time I reread this children's book I am amazed by the wisdom it holds. I've been taught lessons on love from tamed foxes and roses on faraway planets, and it reminds me that wisdom knows no age, as souls also don't seem to have one either."

From the Author