4 comments about True Pleasures: A Memoir of Women in Paris.

1. I loved this book. It is part biography, part philosophy, part social analysis. I found insight and inspiration in every chapter, and historical figures about whom I knew little or nothing came vividly to life. Holdforth goes to Paris to shake up her system and determine a direction for her life, and by studying the lives of many famous Parisian women (born there or elsewhere), she does just that. If you love Paris, want to read about some fascinating women, or think there is more to womanhood than work, marriage or children, you'll enjoy this book a lot. (She also makes an excellent case for aging gracefully in Paris, and if I ever win the Lotto, that's exactly what I plan to do!)



2. This book was a disappointment. I bought it because I wanted to read about all the interesting women it claims to be about: Nancy Mitford, Ninon, many others. But it is not about them. It is about the author. Once in awhile she thinks about one of these women, and gives you her thoughts. But she doesn't tell you much about the women. You are left still wanting to know the lives and loves of the famous women of Paris. This book is for people who really want to know what the author thinks about Paris, but I don't know her and I'm not interested in what she thinks, nor when she feels tired, when she wants to lie down, what she eats, when she travels on the Metro, what she says to her friends. I wanted to read about what the charming and fascinating women of Paris said and thought.`



3. I have a feeling the author and I would get along just fine! I too enjoy researching a historic figure (Catherine de Medici, Josephine, and Camille Claudel have all been recent obsessions) and then walking in her footsteps in Paris. Not only did this book reconnect me with some of my favorite femmes but it introduced me to more fascinating women and their neighborhoods. That thrill of discovery - when you look up at a particular balcony or past a small park that you may have passed countless times before - and suddenly realize its significance to the woman who once lived there - this is what the author captures perfectly. A wonderful gift for your fellow Francophiles and strong women!



4. I read this book when I needed inspiration - and I found it here. Not only does the author provide insight into the lives of fabulous and famous women, she provides insight into her own life and how experiences in Paris influenced and shaped her. The book provides the perfect balance between historical facts, personal insight and the joys of life in Paris today. It also encourages you to read more books on each of these topics - ie. it starts a journey which goes way beyond this one book.

5 comments about Scum of the Earth.

1. There are so many people in our society who do things for their own pleasure which are likely to get them thrown into prison that it is difficult for me to picture a prison in which most of the prisoners have a long history of being locked up because of their political activities. The Epilogue of this book, in the form of a letter to Colonel Blimp, complains of an economic order which "reminds one of a certain goose which, instead of golden eggs, lays a time bomb every day and then settles down to hatch it. But all this need not disturb you." (p. 250) The section called Purgatory starts on October 2nd, 1939, with Koestler getting out of a bathtub and wrapping himself in a towel to answer the door, only to have the police ask him, "Have you a gun on you?" (p. 63) The book is full of details, and the pages that are most chilling for me are 94 and 95. "We were two thousand in the camp of Vernet. The average time each of us had spent in jail or internment was eighteen months. . . . If somebody screamed at night in our barrack, we knew he had dreamt of the Gestapo." When Koestler wrote this book, "of its 2000 prisoners only about fifty have been released; . . . and the camp is under the control of the Gestapo."



2. The book itself is interseting, beceause it describes how many situations a man can experience during wartime. How the idyllic countryside life changes into the terror of a concentration camp, and then into a desperate fight against the bureacracy. I am pleased to recommend this book to everybody, who is not only interested in cheap thrillers.......



3. This is the history that France would rather forget, despite claims that the account was part fictionalised it nonetheless reveals disturbing tendencies in pre-German invasion France that were to aid the Nazi occupation and also create the Vichy regime. Anti-Communist and anti-Jewish tendencies, he claims were spreading through France at the time, and leading some people there to believe that German occupation may have been a necessary evil to purge France of left wing and Jewish elements. Koestler also documents the xenophobia spreading through the country...

   Koestler and others were put into camps by the French. Koestler himself was partly a refugee fleeing the Nazis who killed other parts of his family in Hungary and Austria. Being an ex-Communist, led him into suspicion both by the French authorities and the Communists themselves. Koestler was to experience other traumas after this, notably being imprisoned in Franco's Spain (documented in his book "Spanish Testament"). "The Homeless Mind" is the only modern biography of Koestler I'm aware of and should be available from this stockist... and talks of this fascinating and intelligent but sometimes stupid and brutal man.




4. Arthur Koestler's memoir about his experiences during the beginning of the Second World War is interesting from a historical standpoint. Koestler finds himself all over Europe, in and out of internment camps, encountering people from all over of all classes. Koestler's experience is interesting because the way he was treated was not the norm, it was the product of his unique background and situation, but it still represents the wide range of possible experiences during this historically uncertain time. The level that it succeeds on most, however, is a personal one. Koestler is a damn witty, talented author, who knows how to tell a story. Despite the subject matter he finds much work with. One can't help but smile at he way he describes the inbreed locals of a small village or the way he personifies his car. As interesting as the historical and stylistic elements is his description of himself (clearly a flawed man with a drinking problem) and his unlikely relationship with a younger woman he wasn't meant to end up with. It may be a comparatively obscure piece of literature, but it's certainly one worth reading.



5. ONE of the greatest books to come out of the second world war now carries a tragic irony. The reverberations of its author's suicide in 1983 spill over into one's reading of it.
   
   In 1939, Koestler was living in the South of France working on Darkness At Noon. Moving to Paris to enlist with the Allies he was, along with thousands of others who had fought Fascism around Europe, imprisoned as an undesirable alien. Life in the camp, which German emigres testified to being comparable with Dachau, is illuminated by a writer whose humanity, optimism and intelligence shine on every page.

No comments about The Complete Guide to Buying Property in France.

No comments about VEGETARIAN PARIS 2008, Addresses and information about vegetarian restaurants, juice bars, organic food shops, organic bakeries and artesian wells in Paris.

5 comments about A Gift from Brittany: A Memoir of Love and Loss in the French Countryside.

1. "This is a wonderful story of the coming together of cultures and generations. A woman artist finds herself in a foreign land; in spite of facing loneliness and hardship, she finds love right where she is in the friendship with an elderly village woman, and the friendship changes the foreigner's life. She learns new tricks to survive in the ancient French village and earns the respect of the villagers as she adjusts to her new life. It is a compelling story and you feel it really comes from the heart."
   
   Fred Andresen, Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia.



2. This is a profound and touching memoir of the joys, sorrows and personal growth of a young America artist. Marjorie Price's life is changed in ways she could never have anticipated when she leaves Chicago for Paris in the 1960's to enhance her art and to experience all things French. She marries a French artist, and together they buy a centuries-old farm in a tiny hamlet in Brittany. As her marriage unravels, Price and her young daughter become more comfortable with their new neighbors and their rural, unmechanized way of life. A central theme, and for me the most touching one, is the way Price forges an affecting relationship with a remarkable older woman who has lived all her life in the hamlet.
   
   Events and dialogue are recreated in a flowing dramatic narrative, laced with elements of sadness and humor. Every scene, every venue, is real and present, drawing the reader in as if witness to a staged play. Always the artist, Price perceives her natural surroundings in their ever-changing light and array of colors and forms, and paints it all with words as effective as brush strokes.



3. This is one of those books you just don't want to put down, and my only complaint is that it isn't longer!! Price is a skilled writer who can describe a scene as carefully as I think she could sketch it (she is an artist by profession). I'll try to constrain my remarks to my impression of her book because I don't want to give away the twists and turns in the story. As mentioned in the publishers review, this is the story of a woman in the 60's who marries and has a house in rural France, her marriage falling apart at the same time her bond with a country woman who on paper she has nothing in common with grows. Her descriptions are so vivid you think you were an eyewitness, which is doubly fortunate because she is present at the close of an era. As she remarks, when she first moved there many people were living not that much different than people did in the Middle Ages, but electricity and the modern conveniences changed all that. As mentioned, a lot of the story centers around her friendship with a neighbor who lived her whole life within perhaps a 3-mile circle of the village. This is a double-edged sword. While her elderly friend is a bridge to a past that is fast disappearing in the 60's, I think the author still harbors some guilt about not being present for her friend at the end. But as the subtitle says, a memoir of love and loss. To sum up, Price is a gifted writer and I hope she is penning another book as we speak!



4. One of those rare books that you cannot put down, knowing as you are reading it that you will be sorry when the book ends. I don't normally keep many books after I am finished reading them, but this one is a keeper. A beautiful story of a woman discovering herself and also that of her friendship with someone you would think she had nothing in common with.



5. Other reviewers have told the story of this memoir: a young American water-colorist goes to France in the 1960s to study and falls in love with a handsome, caring and gifted French painter whom she marries and with whom she has a child. They move to a remote Breton village and as the husband's behavior grows more erratic, suppressive and then violent from mental illness, his young wife finds stability and a deep friendship with an old Breton peasant woman who has seldom been more than a few miles from her village, cannot read or write, and would not speak on a telephone if she had one. The friendship grows to a rare and unexpected love.
   
   The author's tribute to her peasant friend whose support gave her the strength to go on with her life and work is absolutely beautiful. It gives me great faith in what life can be. I number this among my most treasured books and will soon be reading it again.
   
   I am the author of MARRYING MOZART and several other novels.

No comments about Gascony, the Pyrenees & Toulouse, 5th (Country & Regional Guides - Cadogan).

No comments about Culture Shock! Paris: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! at Your Door).

5 comments about The Most Beautiful Villages of the Dordogne (Most Beautiful Villages).

1. This book, with its artistic photographs and evocative descritions of an enchanting land where bright sunlight, a warm climate, fragances of the country side, and nostalgic medieval villages perched on cliffs and hilltops, immerses the reader in a fantasy land of great beauty and ancient heritage.



2. oldest village with the sensity rive



3. Of all the places I've been, I've never seen an area where reality surpasses the most breathtaking photos--until I visited the Dordogne. This book does, however, give the reader a glimpse into what treasures can be found at every turn. The book prepared me well before my trip and brings fond memories now that I'm home.



4. These are stunning photgraphs of one of the most beautiful rural parts of the world, but they left me vaguely dissatisfied. Subsequently I realized why--there are very few people in them. If you are intersted in the architecture of the Dordogne, you will probably enjoy it. But if, like I, you are interested in obtaining a feel for the region and its people, this is not the right book.



5. This book beautifully captures the enchantment of Dordogne. Cozy villages, medieval chateaux, rivers snaking through the charming countryside all describe Dordogne. Also, I would like to point out that the architecture and topography are different from its neighbor, Provence.

1 comments about The Most Beautiful Villages of Normandy (The Most Beautiful Villages Series).

1. Excellant book. Excellant purchase. Good delivery. No complaints.

2 comments about Gourmet Paris: What to Eat Where, Dish by Dish.

1. I'm planning a restaurant-centered trip to Paris for next spring, and am finding this little book an invaluable tool in my research efforts. The author has laboriously evaluated dozens if not hundreds of Parisian restaurants in terms of their execution of various regional cuisines and specialties. For example, if you're looking for a restaurant that specializes in the cooking of Lyon or the Auvergne, he'll have numerous recommendations--many of them small and off the beaten path, and unremarked-on even by the Paris Zagat guide, let alone Frommer or Patricia Wells. By the same token, if you simply must try a dish of aligot, pouchouse, or tablier de sapeur--because you've read about them in Elizabeth David or Waverley Root--you'll be steered directly to them. The book is small enough to carry in one's pocket while walking around the city, and contains enough information about the recommended restaurants (opening hours, phone, other specialties) to make ad hoc planning reasonably simple. Indexes by restaurant name and arrondisement are well put together. All in all, a valuable contribution to the small body of truly useful Paris restaurant guides in English.



2. This book is fabulous - witty, well-written and containing all the must-have addresses for the best food in Paris. It's different from other restaurant guides because instead of picking an area or a price-range for your meal, you just choose the dish you feel like eating. So for example if you want some Bouillabaisse you look it up and there are four recommendations, each of which will serve up their own delicious version of the Marseillaise speciality.

   The guide covers eighty different dishes, both French and International - you can find places for sushi, tacos and curry as well as for pot-au-feu, fondue and coq-au-vin. The author, Emmanuel Rubin is great not only at choosing the finest food but also the places with the best atmosphere. He devotes a section at the end of the book to a guide to restaurants with special features; restaurants with a fireplace, restaurants for kids, restaurants in nightclubs...

   Gourmet Paris is definitely the best present I've received since moving to France; I've been using the guide regularly every time I feel like eating out and I've had nothing but great meals since !