Coming soon: the ultimate blogger party of the year, an entire month of "Paris in July." Paris is surely my favorite tourist destination, and I've been lucky to visit there and even live there a number of times. This year the blog sponsors are Tamara at Thyme for Tea and Deb at Readerbuzz. Participants can write about any Paris topic — food, travel experiences, travel wish lists, books, films, TV shows, magazines, personal experiences or whatever their imagination comes up with. Each week, Tamara and Deb will write a summary of the week’s activities. If you are a lover of Paris, with or without experience, you can be part of the fun — see “It's coming - Paris in July 2022.”
My Reading Plans
This year, I hope to read some books in French, and some books translated from French — and of course, write about them. Above all, I want to read books that have a French point of view, especially about Paris, and to read some of them in the original language. I have been looking at a number of lists of books that fit my goals. Here are a few that I hope to read and to write about:
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| Kiffe Kiffe demain by Faïza Guène, published 2010 So far I have read 2/3 of it in French. |
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| Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe, published 1943. I have ordered a copy of this obscure classic, which was translated in 1997. |
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| Le Larousse du Pain by Eric Kayser, published 2019. Len has begun baking bread from the many recipes here: so far so good, in fact delicious! |
Possibilities -- If I'm Ambitious!
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| Georges Perec. A book written in 1975 about watching the Place de Saint Sulpice in Paris. I'm not sure whether I will try to read this in French or in translation. Or if I even have the courage to try it! Perec’s books are challenging in any language. |
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| One Hundred Twenty-One Days by Michèle Audin, published in French in 2014. |
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| Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda, published in French in 2004. |
21 comments:
Nice you can actually read a book in French. I can do that with maybe a child's story, but then my language ability stops dead in its tracks. These look interesting, and it will be nice to see what you think of them. Happy start to your weekend Mae. hugs-Erika
Paris is my hubby's favourite travel destination!
I’ll have to make a note of those books. Right now I’m in GA with still 2000 books or so on the shelves. I try to usually read a couple in English and in French at the same time. Most of the books are old. For example I’m reading in French now Maigret et le Marchand de Vins of Simenon (have many of his yet) published in 1970. But next on my pile is Voyage d’une Parisienne a Lhassa by Alexandra David-Neel, published in 1924, Le Vin de Solitude of Irene Nemirovsky (by the way Irene was born in Kyiv, Ukraine) originally published in 1935, De Kaboul au Golfe Persique of Francois Balsan, 1948, and the newest books would be a couples of Patrick Modiano.
Paris in July would be nice from afar – too warm there and too many tourists with Parisians out of town. Reading about it though gives me the blues. It would be different if it were a favourite tourist town for me, but being my home town it’s not the same – I miss if, and above all miss speaking my language that I have not spoken with anyone in a long time. Don’t think I’ll go to Paris this year but maybe to another part of France – not in Europe. It’s funny people don’t realize that France is also in other places – like Martinique (Caribbean) that has been in France for a long time. When I went to St Pierre et Miquelon which is France in North America (across from Newfoundland) people could not believe that it was France too (they use Euros there.) The same happens in reverse, when French people come to “America” people think New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, but not Hawaii or Alaska.
I love Paris in July posts. Happy Friday.
www.rsrue.blogspot.com
I'm looking forward to reading these Paris post. Have a nice evening.
I'm not a fan of cities, or anywhere not on the ocean, but if I had to choose one, Paris is my favourite. I am going to see if our local book store has Le Larousse du Pain as I have a gift voucher to use.
1999 we stayed in a little village in Australia an extra day cause they offered petit pain. So yummy.
Other my French is not good enough anymore, so when customers "try me" by pronouncing my name in French and starting with "Bonjour"... I was told to not admit I speak a little still. Despite ALSTOM is a French company the official language luckily is English, phew.
Paris... I was 14, it is ages ago! And ripped my trousers there, LOL.
Enjoy your Paris-month!
Le dernier livre que j'ai lu en français était "Moulin Rouge", la vie de Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
I love PIJ. Not sure how much I'll do this summer -- we're already off kilter with summer plans. But I'll definitely participate in one way or another.
Sounds like a fun month. Hope you get lots of people participating.
J'essaierai de ne pas gâcher la fête en en n'envoyant que des beaux plans de Paris, et il y en a encore de nombreux possibles, dieu merci, mais tout de même, l'état de cette ville se dégrade à une vitesse incroyable. Il y a de plus en plus de saleté, et cela est fort visible quand la pluie ne lave pas les trottoirs. Ce qui fut le cas ces derniers jours où nous avons traversé une vague de chaleur sans précédent. Sinon, bravo pour les livres. Je constate une certain intérêt pour l'oulipo (vous ne devez pas être nombreux aux USA à lire des livres de Michèle Audain), alors je vous suggère ce lien à propose de l'édition d'un livre inédit de pérec : https://lieux-georges-perec.seuil.com/. Et comme il aurait pu l'écrire Bonn smain
Yeah that's really cool if you can read in French. For me, perhaps I'll read a French translated author / novel sometime in July as part of the event. Thx for letting us know.
What a fun event. I was in Paris for a single vacation waaay back in the 1970's! I like traveling via the books these days.
That sounds fun! I love Paris and when I was 18 was given the choice of having a birthday party or going to Paris. I chose Paris. As I live in the UK it doesn't take long to get to Paris so we are very lucky.
Have a great weekend and week ahead!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
My post:
https://budgettalesblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/19/sunday-salon-9/
I added three of those books to my TBR and one of them is available to download NOW, so I did! Thanks for the recommendations!
I'm delighted we will be spending July in Paris this year. I wish I could easily read books in French, but the best I can do is to try to read the pop-up version of The Little Prince in French that I bought this year. I also hope to read the Georges Perec book, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, but that will be in English and only if I'm able to find a copy of it in time. I'm a baker, so Le Larousse du Pain sounds great, too, but again I would have to find that in English.
About availability in English: all but one of the books on this list are available in English translation, and can be purchased at amazon.com, some in kindle editions, some only in paper format. If you are new to Perec, you might want to start with one of his not-quite-so-strange books! He's a strange author.
The Larousse du Pain is not available in translation, but if you want a French baking book in English, I would recommend the book "Poilane" by Apollonia Poilâne, which I wrote up here:
https://maefood.blogspot.com/2020/05/exciting-new-cookbook.html
It has truly French recipes in English, tested for an American kitchen.
best... mae
Hunting and Gathering is a good one. Enjoy.
Sadly I won't participate this year as I will be on holidays in Germany and Portugal in July, but I always enjoy the posts.
I learned some French in school, but subsequently learned English and then German, so with no training my French deteriorated.
Since my daughter is married to a Frenchman and his parents who live in Marseille don't speak much English, I thought I would take up French again. So I go to lessons once a week, just 90min, but then I never study or read, apart from doing a little bit of homework....so I haven't improved much sadly. Not enough to read a whole book in French!
I've wanted to visit Paris for years but for some reason I've never felt the urge to read any books about Paris. Maybe I'll give one a try soon.
Some great ideas for our Paris month. I will certainly try to put some into my list next year.
Thanks for your contribution to my Paris in July.
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