Archives des books on France - FUSAC Paris Classifieds

New Arrivals at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room – English Books Paris

Each week in the Book Room online, we recommend newly published English books we love. We also present some in French or bilingual, for kids or adults, fiction or non. Many are books about France of course, but there are many different subjects. To discover all our titles come visit Bill & Rosa's Book Room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdoODVrfv4c This week's theme in the Book Room: Halloween

HALLOWEEN COLORING BOOK. This book comes with a brush and needs only water to make the magic paint appear. 16 Halloween-esque scenes are full of bright color and rich detail once simply wet with the brush. There's a haunted house, trick or treat, witches and more. On the practical side the cover folds over to prevent splashy painters from getting the whole book soaked at once! The same publisher has many other subjects in this same format and series: Christmas, nature,…

Why do you call it a canicule?

Word etymologies are great fun. Here's a few pertinent ones.

Canicule

Usually this French word is translated to English as heatwave, but a more picturesque and almost literal translation would be "the dog days of summer". Basically it means that it is very hot, hotter than it usually is. But why this reference both in the French "cani" and English to dogs? What do dogs have to do with heat? It goes back to astronomy. The Dog Star, or Sirius, rises and sets with the sun during the summer. Thus the most sultry time of the year became associated with the Dog Star, called canicula in Latin. The word canicule dates from about 1500, but the Romans and Greeks had already been refering to the dog days and associating them with the star Sirius.

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky; On summer nights, star of stars, Orion's Dog they call it, brightest Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat And fevers to suffering humanity.

Homer's Illiad Once …

Villepreux a microcosm of French history

During the confinement we had a lot of time to walk around our town, Villepreux, 11,000 people situated in the Yvelines department west of Paris. A usually quiet, non-descript town, we hadn’t thought too much about it before but there were a couple of spots that intrigued us while out walking within one kilometer of the house. One of them was the path that we walked called the Chemin entre Deux Murs or the path between two walls. What two walls? what was that all about? Then there’s the old village with a couple of houses that look pretty old including one with visible half timbers. There’s a chateau, in fact there are two, plus centuries-old farms and a neighborhood called the Prieuré or priory. The new center of town is a 1960s construction out of cement. Town houses and a shopping area that hasn’t worn very well over the years. The first impression is that Villepreux is a rather ordinary suburban bedroom community of Paris or closer Versailles. But once you start looking…

Recipe for Confinement Loaf

Serves 2. Active time: 10 min. Cooking time: 55 days

Ingredients for Confinement Loaf

100 crumpled attestations

100 crumbs of the pages of the book you read too many times

2 squares of minced TP because that's all you have

10 used paper masks, thinly sliced

2 pairs of worn out rubber gloves, naturally shredded

a pinch of the hair you cut yourself

1 empty gel bottle, finely chopped

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl. Form into a loaf with sore-from-clapping-chapped hands. Garnish with a cloth mask that needs disinfecting (since one of the suggested germ-killing options is putting them in the oven!).

Put the loaf in the oven at 60° C – the ideal temp for that mask. Let cook for 55 days, then on May 11, sprinkle on as many hashtags as you can find, take a photo and post on Instagram before gleefully dumping this unpalatable loaf in the trash!

PS: Can also be made …

How a Paris Bus Ride Became a History Lesson

A free woman in Paris in search of alone time, to calm my thoughts and clear my mind, with an hour or two to spare, I would hop a Paris bus, traveling from one terminus to the other, always sitting on the right to watch the crowds from the window. As the bus moved through traffic, I would observe the grace, refinement and ugliness, glimpsing the mundane drama of sidewalk cafés and storefronts. The old RATP buses had open back platforms, and when the warm weather came in spring, I would 'ride through Paris with the warm wind in my hair.'

I was a stranger to Paris then. I had barely ventured beyond the Latin Quarter since my arrival. Too busy settling in, dealing with the bureaucracy, and struggling with a language I had thought I knew sometimes left me feeling overwhelmed. My sense of discovery had dwindled.

Through the dusty windows or from the open back, I saw the history of France in the social fabric of Paris neighborhoods. I crossed wards and wond…

Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

What is Bill & Rosa's Book Room ?

First of all, for us, a Book Room is a comfortable place to spend some time. Think of it as the reading lounge on the ocean liners of yore. Our maître-mots are

Read, Write, Relax. Buy, Borrow, Donate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdoODVrfv4c

Bill & Rosa's Book Room has several aspects. It is a USED BOOK SHOP and a LENDING LIBRARY. There are many novels of all genres for sale plus non-fiction, biographies, history, some poetry, cookbooks, cats, books on Paris or France, memoirs and children's books. Most books are in English, but also in French and even a few bilingual. Prices start at just 2€.

The lending library has four sections :

The Sylvie and Henry Noullet Library: novels mostly in EnglishBill and Rosa's Library of the American West includes novels, non-fiction and art books…

Hogtied in the Hexagon? part 3 of 3

Hogtied in the Hexagon? Part 3 Our choice of 15 Books to help you better understand France. part 1 of this article part 2 of this article First of all what is "hogtied"? To hogtie is an Americanism that goes back to about 1890 literally meaning to tie an animal, in particular a hog, with all four feet together. Figuratively the phrase mean to thwart or hamper. So below is the last part of our list of 15 books that'll help you feel less bewildered in France. What is the Hexagon? The Hexagon is a nickname for France! (due to the mainland's nearly hexagonal shape) La puce à l’oreille: anthologie des expressions populaires avec leur origine Claude Duneton Fistfuls of everyday expressions are analyzed in their social and historical contexts. A marvel of curiosity, this book will teach you a great number of things about popular expressions. Tomber en quenouille, avoir la poisse, la veuve poignet, être un pigeon, rouler une pelle, pas piqué des hannetons, avoir du pain sur la plan…

Hogtied in the Hexagon? part 2 of 3

Hogtied in the Hexagon? Part 2 Our choice of 15 Books to help you better understand France. (part 1 of this article) First of all what is "hogtied"? To hogtie is an Americanism that goes back to about 1890 literally meaning to tie an animal, in particular a hog, with all four feet together. Figuratively the phrase mean to thwart or hamper. So here is part 2 of our list of 15 books that'll help you feel less bewildered in France. What is the Hexagon? The Hexagon is a nickname for France! (due to the mainland's nearly hexagonal shape) Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar Memoirs of Hadrian is a novel by the Belgian-born French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman ever elected to the Académie française (1980). It is about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book takes the form of a letter to Hadrian’s cousin and eventual successor «Mark» (Marcus Aurelius). The emperor meditates on military triumphs, love of poetry and music, philosophy, and his passion f…