Why the French Loved Goodis
581230
Long after Hollywood had abandoned David Goodis and left him washed up and unaapreciated living above his parents garage in urban Philly, French filmmakers (dassin & truffaut) were inspired by the black hearted passion and off beat noir that was more concerned with the peicemeal, poetic destruction of his characters than formulaic plots of his American counterparts. For Goodis it is all about obsession and failed redemption. And Cassidy's Girl stands alongside THE STREET of NO RETURN and THE BLONDE on the STREET CORNER as one of his masterpieces. David Cassidy is caught between two women. One woman, an alcoholic lost soul emanating good represents a second shot at former greatness. The other woman, voluptuous and iron willed drives his dark lusts, offers him bodily bliss and inevitable doom. Of course, the usual array of bums, losers, rummy philosophers and tender-hearted whores populate this work, giving the book that dreary, broken bottle, rainy sky, desolate and realistic feel of forlorn hope. Goodis is to NOIR what Poe was to horror, that is to say that Goodis transcends genre, concerning himself less with plot and stereotypes of stupid cops, sadistic killers and tough guy PIs but more about revealing the alchemy of the dark desires that drive the human spirit away from happiness and towards self-destruction.
3873769
The French make great movies!  They are always loaded with great scenery, sets, locations, and wardrobes.
3312066
I read this book in French also and it was wonderful.  It is like a historical novel.
Rich characters,  good story line,  interesting, inspiring, and well researched.
4956063
The French have a knack of doing an excellent job of character study.  I enjoyed the film. And would recommend it to foreign film fans.
2952754
Paris Match is excellent reading "en franais" if you wish to keep up both your French and the news, reviews, in depth articles, humor and photographs of the rich and famous, along with philosophical essays.
It is a very good read, and a clever way to improve one's vocabulary whilst being entertained.
4212605
For the lovers of everything French, "Lunch in Paris" is a nice pastime. Elizabeth Bard wrote up the story of her romance leading to a happy marriage with a Frenchman, lacing it with many recipes for French food.

Studying for a Master's degree, Elizabeth attended a conference in Paris, where she met Gwendal, a PhD student, and she let herself be seduced by his personality and lifestyle, falling in love with him and with Parisian life at the same time. She wanders around Paris, eating in typical French restaurants, making observations of differences between French and American homes, families, attitude to work... There are some recommendations of restaurants which sound amazing, and the Paris which emerges from her story is even more alluring than the one from guidebooks (and very realistic).

There are many similar books, in the boom that started with Peter Mayle - pleasant literary holidays for those who cannot go to their dream places. "Lunch in Paris" is not very original and fill of clichs, but it is written with humor and wit, and the recipes are excellent and not too hard to follow (I have tried some already: yoghurt cake, savory cake, lentils, ratatouille - and all of them worked). In fact, I think that the recipes may be the best part of the whole book. The narrative part is a bit nave, banal and stereotypic, but it reads fast and is a pleasant distraction from everyday life.
4506553
The Gourmet, translated by Alison Anderson, is unmistakably French in style. It's a very short story of the deathbed thoughts of god-like food critic Pierre Arthens as he tries to recall a particular taste that he wishes to experience again before he dies. He goes through several food groups, recalling flavours (beautifully described) and experiences - many from childhood - chapter by chapter, each one interspersed with thoughts on the great man's imminent death by those who know him (including some surprise views from statues and pets!). Although very short, it's perfectly judged as any longer would start to get tedious although several of the stories of those who know him are particularly nicely written and wet the appetite for more.

It's perhaps slightly unfortunate that we discover that the illusive taste that he is seeking is very unique to France - and therefore perhaps the international reader is less able to identify with this particular taste - a minor point, but one that was strangely annoying to me.

This particular edition also has some of those "book group" type questions at the end as well as a number of taster chapters for the author's bestselling The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

It's a quick read undoubtedly, but quite a literary one, in common with much of the French style. Ideal reading for the dedicated foodie (although its worth pointing out that food is used as a metaphor for much deeper meaning in this book) as well as lovers of stylish prose.
4115600
I took mine to France and now they all want to buy them!
3325777
Eugne Sue's MYSTRES DE PARIS is a wonderful newspaper crime serial, one of the very first  mystery bestsellers. It was so successful that publishers encouraged Dumas and Hugo to imitate it, and that's how we got LES MISRABLES and LE COMTE DE MONTE CRISTO.

How absolutely perfect.

The French equivalents of Gutenberg texts tend to be much better: far fewer typos and better paragraphing. The ten separate Kindle "volumes" of MYSTRES are even better than that, because they have a linked glossary for all the slang words Sue uses. There are over a hundred of those in the first volume alone.

For some reason, the dollar-version that unites the ten volumes does not have this easy-link glossary (I checked a sample), so it's less convenient, as well as slightly more costly.

I bought a recent French reprint of MYSTRES and found excellent scholarly notes, old engravings from the original illustrators, and good appendices collecting critics' and general readers' reactions at the time. This was worth the money indeed, but in a heavy soft paperback, tough to hold and almost guaranteed to fall apart as you read it. And the book can do without footnotes EXCEPT for the slang (and Sue's own rare footnotes, which the freebie version also has).

So all in all the best buy is the free buy.

Sue's good guys are very good and his bad guys are very bad. His hero is immensely rich, and since he concentrates on helping a small handful of good poor people whom he happens to run into, everything works out okay in the end without his having to support taxes and public assistance. Sue was called a Socialist, and elected to government on that basis, during his own lifetime, but 1840 socialism would make Rush Limbaugh very happy. It depends almost entirely on the rich being kind to other people.

Some readers will find the book all the better for its reliance on trickle-down charity. I can take that or leave it, but Sue's tour of the Parisian underworld is exciting no matter how he solves its problems. And I think zero is a very fitting price for reading him. Ten times zero is obviously ten times better.
206420
I came to this Amazon page to get details about these CDs that I've been recommending to someone looking for good beginning French instruction for her family. Years ago, I had spent a little bit of time listening to the CDs before heading off to France on my own; I was surprised and relieved to find that I was able to communicate with a fair amount of confidence and dignity, eliciting friendly and respectful responses from the French. It's not as if I could actually carry on a conversation, but I could at least figure out how to ask basic questions in a pretty comfortable and confident manner and to understand responses. He slowly and methodically teaches you how to think it out word by word without doing a lot of rote memorization. I gave his set of Spanish CDs to some friends who were about to spend a lot of time in Mexico, and they loved them - they bought the more advanced ones to continue.

I was surprised to see comments here about this not being real French. That got me to wondering whether I should be recommending them. So I did an online search to find out about Thomas' background. I was astonished. Not only has he lived in France, but he was in the French army in WWII; served in the intelligence corps; was in infamous concentration camps (one of which he escaped from); worked in the French resistance; he was even tortured for information by the Gestapo and French police, but didn't break down. He went on to be a lieutenant of the French Forces of the Interior, and commanded a group that destroyed telephone lines in coordination with the landing of the Allies in Normandy. And on and on and on - there's even a book about him by Christopher Robbins called A Test of Courage! So I think it's safe to assume that what he's teaching is real French - and this whole thing has inspired me to dig those CDs out again and really use them to learn more instead of waiting till the last minute when I'm off to travel again.
3536609
These rillettes are very good, loaded with cholesterol, but delicious, a treat for someone accustomed to eat french food. I like the rillettes better than the pate, I buy them regularly. The brand is a good french brand.
3196378
Well I am French and love good food and wine. These Sirens are the equivalent of a five star meal in Paris: balanced yet surprising, beautiful,well paired, stylish... What else doesone want? Ah ok... good food is like good erotica it teases you to no-end... Well guess what: eroticism and fear are two main ingredients of their dishes... So for the fraction of a price of that good meal in Paris you can own this great anthology (plus you do not have to put up with arrogant Parisians like me!). Run do not walk... these kind of deals do not last....
274326
I am a big Francophile who keeps a list of the books I've read.  I loved this book and its story of one of the greatest periods in French history.  I went to put it on my list and realized that I'd read it 7 years before!  That had no effect on my ability to thoroughly enjoy it the second time through.
439098
Great film.  Works well with a French audience, but may be a failure with Americans.  The French rely on true friendships much more than Americans.  Americans tend to have "casual" friends, but tend not to have "life long" friends.  Success in the US does not rely too much on friendships.  Folks in the USA would rather be alone and wealthy, and pay for services, including friendships, therapy, and sex, than to have to rely on their own behavior to make life long friendships.  Our own French friends keep in contact with us, even though they don't see us but maybe once a year.  My American "casual" friends, seem to come and go largely based on their personal goals in life.
617642
It felt complete and for a short story thats saying something. Its set during WWII, one of my favorite historical periods. Plus, both the protags are French! You know my feels on the French.

Marc and Renny live in occupied France. Renny is with the Rsistance and a wolf shifter. Marcs disability disqualified him from joining the military and his being both gay and a misanthrope has led him to a small farm just outside Vosges.

He lives a quiet life until Renny, starving and in desperate need of shelter sneaks into his chicken coop to get dinner. Rennys been hunted for hours by his own countrymen after escaping a prison camp. He takes a chance and shifts in front of Marc to beg for aid.

They only have a handful of hours together but Nichols captured the energy of the era brilliantly. The weariness, the distrust and the feeling of being downtrodden after so many years of war, death, destruction and occupation and how that atmosphere had a way of fostering connections quickly.

And this particular connection stands a good chance of surviving the test of time.

Its more sweet than sexy and that was fine with me. I liked the atmosphere Nichols creates as well as the writing style and I got a good sense of both of these characters in a short period of time. Ill be on the lookout for more in the future.
1446505
This is one of the few books I have read cover to cover more than once.  It gives a great overview of France's WWI experience in about 300 pages.  As Watt tells it Marshal Petain and Georges Clemenceau are the heroes who saved France.  The Pacifist, Pro-German Joseph Caillaux was the villain and a traitor.  One wonders how Clemenceau and Calliaux would be judged if the German offensive of March 1918 had been successful.  In some respects I think the book is unfair to Caillaux, who sought reproachment with Germany before the war began.  Was it really such a great idea for France to tie itself to Russia and its issues with the Germans?
1724833
The Story of French describes the ongoing process of the creation of an international language. Extending from the fall of the Roman Empire up to the present-day , the authors mix history with a clever eye to how the past has prepared the way for the present condition of the French language. It is benefited by years of on-site study from Canada and Africa to East Asia - and of course, France.

The book is full of interesting historical tidbits. For the lover of applied history, this book has a lot to offer. I would have liked to see more on the early languages and dialects that birthed French, as that time period always interests me more than the modern period. But of necessity, well supported by the authors, heavy emphasis is put on the period from 1700 to the present, which have seen French grow to be more than just the hallmark of high society and scholarship, becoming first a truly national language, and then with fits and starts developing into an international language, increasing the possible influence of French-speaking nations even as France itself wanes in direct influence.

Knowing French is not required to read this book, though it won't hurt. A familiarity with French phonetics is probably more helpful than any other facet of French. The authors do address a number of features of French around the world, such as the use ofargot and regional dialects, changes in spelling and grammar and differences in approaches to vocabulary development around the French-speaking world (especially contrasting Quebec and France).

English naturally takes a large role in this book, and the authors seem torn at times between viewing it as friend, or at least amicable companion,  or foe. They solidly portray French as not being opposed to English, and even benefiting from its ascent. At the same time, English is  often presented as anever-present competitor for the hearts and minds of those within international organizations such as the United Nations.

The facts and opinions presented are definitely biased by a distance from France. Benot is from Quebec, a fact that repeatedly plays into his relationships and conversations with French speakers around the world. This at some points works well with the point the author is trying to make, but this is not always the case. For instance, I found Benot to be overly critical of the French Academy's usefulness, even when he was clear about its purpose and mission.

Also, I found that the book often strays from topic - or at least takes extended side trips. For example, descriptions of the many scientific achievements of Frenchmen likely intended to show that French once was and continues to be a language conducive to scientific discourse. However, it continued for many pages, failing to circle back to the main focus. While many sections were very well organized and had just the right balance between supporting information and historical assertions, this was not always the case.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed reading it, and getting a better feel for how history and the language itself are intertwined.