Published nearly 50 years ago, Mastering the Art of French Cooking has risen again. The book that launched Julia Child's career (oh, and revolutionized the way Americans cook) was No. 1 at both Amazon and B&N.com last weekend, due in large measure to the success of Julie & Julia, the Columbia Pictures film, written and directed by Nora Ephron and starring Meryl Streep as the legendary chef. It is currently No. 3 at independent booksellers across the country and debuts today on USA Today’s best sellers list, and next week, it will appear on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover nonfiction best sellers list at No. 6.

The book — which has never been out-of-print — is estimated to have sold more than a million copies over the course of its long life. Last year 25,000 copies of the hardcover and trade paperback editions were sold. To coincide with the release of Julie & Julia, the book was reprinted four times — three times in the last week — bringing the number of copies available this year alone to more than 225,000. Those figures reflect a tenfold increase in demand over last year.

“It’s heartening to see a new generation of cooks coming to this seminal book,” says Judith Jones, a senior editor at Knopf. Jones, Julia Child’s longtime editor, discovered the manuscript for Mastering the Art of French Cooking and marshaled the book through production.

Child, who died in 2004, would have celebrated her 97th birthday on August 15th.