I love food and I can’t say I’m not interested in France but I found A Revolution in Taste, the subject of which is the evolution of food in France in the 17th to 19th century, less than exciting. It’s exquisitely researched, with numerous footnotes and endnotes — and that may be the issue: too much [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘France’
February 13, 2009
Disquiet by Julia Leigh
Prepare to be depressed. The 120 pages of Disquiet describe a family where nothing works: the grandmother lives in splendid isolation and self-centeredness in her French chateau. The daughter has left her abusive husband and seems only marginally able to tend to her young son and daughter. The son’s wife has just had a stillborn daughter. [...]
January 28, 2009
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Having read this delighful book about real hedgehogs I was reminded about another book with a (symbolic) hedgehog in the title, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which I coincidentally heard had just been translated into English. I read it a couple years ago, and in French, so I’m hoping both my memory and the translation [...]
December 1, 2008
An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is a memoir about having a stillborn baby, and it improbably opens with a hilarious misunderstanding, in a French hospital since the parents lived there at the time, of why one may want to speak with a dwarf after suffering such a loss. Ah, the perils of [...]
October 2, 2008
When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Do you like David Sedaris? Then you will enjoy When you are Engulfed in Flames, his latest collection of essays that, as usual, mixes old and new, hilarious and embarrassing, and many countries including France (again) and Japan (new and funny.)
I found the first few essays so-so, which is why you may want to try [...]
