Tag Archives: i love Paris

I love France #16: Notre-Dame de Paris

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I LOVE FRANCE!

I plan to publish this meme every Thursday.
You can share here about any book
or anything cultural you just discovered related to France, Paris, etc.

Please spread the news on Twitter, Facebook, etc !
Feel free to grab my button,
and link your own post through Mister Linky,
at the bottom of this post.

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Glad to be back with this meme, and for a while it will be mostly related to my trip to France, and first about Paris.

A few words today about Notre-Dame, taken from wikipedia, illustrated with my own pictures:

Notre Dame de Paris (IPA: [nɔtʁ dam də paʁi]; French for Our Lady of Paris), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral or simply Notre Dame,[2] is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, currently André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury houses a reliquary with the purported Crown of Thorns.

Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in France and in Europe, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The first period of construction from 1163 into 1240s coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school.

The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc removed remaining decoration, returning the cathedral to an ‘original’ gothic state.

HAVE YOU VISITED NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS?
WHAT DO YOU LIKE/UNLIKE ABOUT IT?

HAVE YOU READ VICTOR HUGO’S BOOK?
HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE?

Please if possible
include the title of the book or topic in your link:
name of your blog (name of the book title or topic).
Thanks

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I love France #15: (2012) #15 review: le dieu du carnage

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I LOVE FRANCE!

I plan to publish this meme every Thursday.
You can share here about any book
or anything cultural you just discovered related to France, Paris, etc.

Please spread the news on Twitter, Facebook, etc !
Feel free to grab my button,
and link your own post through Mister Linky,
at the bottom of this post.

*******

Le dieu du carnage

by

Yasmina REZA

128 pages

Published by Albin Michel in 2007

(English translation by Christopher Hampton published by Faber & Faber in 2007)

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

          

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

First let me tell how much I enjoy my French online teaching! I use skype, which allows me to have students form all over the world.
I particularly enjoy the advanced to nearly fluent students: apart from the necessaru grammatical exercises, we either watch French videos together and talk on them, or share about the latest movies we saw or books we read.

One day, R. shared with me her passion for French plays, and even sent me an efile of the latest she had read. So I read it as well, and then we spent a few classes looking at the interesting colloquial vocabulary and studying the charcater development of this short play. It really made it more interesting than if I had just read it by myself.

A kid has just hit another one at achool. We are here in the presence of the 2 sets of parents who want to reach some kind of peaceful agreement about the whole thing. It starts in a very polite and courteous manner, with typical rich French people, superficial, or stuck in their business.
Then, little by little, things fall apart: one gets drunk, and then politeness disappear  to give place to rudeness, even meanness and violence, with lots of street vocabulary, perfect if you intend to improve your modern French!

I kind of enjoyed this social satire, it sounded very French to me.

Actually a movie has been made put of it and is available. I’m looking forward to watch it.

WHAT IS IS ABOUT

What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behavior of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums, and tears before bedtime?
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Yasmina Reza’s sharp-edged new play The God of Carnage premiered at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, in March 2008 and at Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, New York City, in March 2009. The International Herald Tribune calls it “an expert piece of stagecraft, and savagely funny.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yasmina Reza began work as an actress, appearing in several new plays as well as in plays by Molière and Marivaux. In 1987 she wrote Conversations after a Burial, which won the Molière Award for Best Author. Following this, she translated Kafka’s Metamorphosis for Roman Polanski and was nominated for a Molière Award for Best Translation. Her second play, Winter Crossing, won the 1990 Molière for Best Fringe Production, and her next play The Unexpected Man, enjoyed successful productions in England, France, Scandinavia, Germany and New York. In 1995, Art premiered in Paris and went on to win the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has been produced world-wide and translated into 20 languages. The London production received the 1996-97 Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award. Screenwriting credits include See You Tomorrow, starring Jeanne Moreau and directed by Didier Martiny. In September 1997, her first novel, Hammerklavier, was published.

HAVE YOU READ
OR WATCHED THIS PLAY YET?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

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Please if possible
include the title of the book or topic in your link:
name of your blog (name of the book title or topic).
Thanks

I love France #14: Review #6 (2012): Paris, My Sweet

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I LOVE FRANCE!

This meme will be published every Thursday.
You can share here about any book
or anything cultural you just discovered related to France, Paris, etc.

Please spread the news on Twitter, Facebook, etc !
Feel free to grab my button,
and link your own post through Mister Linky
please if possible
include the title of the book or topic in your link.

*******

Paris, My Sweet:

A Year in the City of Light

(and Dark Chocolate)

by

Amy THOMAS

280 pages

Published by Sourcebooks today, Feb 1 , 2012!

Ebook received for free from Netgalley and Sourcebooks

I read this book for the following Challenges:

    

 

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

The ad for this ebook was so alléchante (appetizing) that I could not resist. And this was indeed a treat!

Amy, from New York, is sent for her work in Paris. As she had discovered treasures of bread and mostly sweets some years before, her tale of two cities is organized by chapter each dedicated to some great French and/or American sweet, from la madeleine to cupcakes.

It is both the story of her struggle in finding her place as an expat in the French society, and that was rather tough at the beginning, and the revelation of her deepening love for the city of light – for instance on  a vélib, the bicycles you can rent to go around in Paris.

This book is a treasure trove of fantastic places in Paris and New York if you have a sweet tooth. At the end of each chapter, she recapitulates a few key places in both cities where you can find what she presented in the chapter.

Also, at the very end of the book, you will find a long list of those amazing sweet houses in both cities.

This is irresistible, but really dangerous if you are on as diet. This book made me hungry all along, even though I’m not really a fan of sweets.

It is also a very good presentation of the French mentally, and this book may rightly debunk some of your too romantic ideas about the French people.

But all is well that ends well, Amy calls now Paris her home.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Part love letter to New York, part love letter to Paris, and total devotion to all things sweet. Paris, My Sweet is a personal and moveable feast that’s a treasure map for anyone who loves fresh cupcakes and fine chocolate, New York and Paris, and life in general. It’s about how the search for happiness can be as fleeting as a sliver of cheesecake and about how the life you’re meant to live doesn’t always taste like the one you envisioned. Organized into a baker’s dozen of delicacies (and the adventures they inspired) that will tempt readers’ appetites, Paris, My Sweet is something to savor. [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amy Thomas is a writer based in Paris and New York.

It was during her junior year abroad at the American University of Paris that Amy’s infatuation with the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate) blossomed into true love. But when she finished her degree at Babson College, it was to San Francisco that she moved. There, she started a career in advertising at J. Walter Thompson and Foote, Cone & Belding, working on accounts such as Levi’s, Amazon and the YMCA.

Along the way, her interest in the editorial world evolved into a second career and a move to New York brought her closer to home (and Madison Avenue). While her copywriting portfolio expanded to include Redken, BMW and Dove, her magazine and newspaper writing brought her to Sydney, Dublin, the Caucus mountains and the Connecticut coastline.

In 2008, fate or luck came her way with a job offer to work on Louis Vuitton’s digital advertising in the Paris office of Ogilvy & Mather. With a full-blown éclair addiction and an imaginary closet filled with only Vuitton, Paris is where Amy now calls home.

Here is her website, and her great blog on Paris.

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

“”A sweet and charming tale of Paris through the eyes of a cake-lover. Willie Wonka for grown ups — and a guide to some of the sweetest destinations in the City of Light. ” – Karen Wheeler, author of Tout Sweet

“”Such a charming, heartfelt book. Paris, My Sweet is as dainty and decadent as a box of pastel macarons, a bewitching tale of a young woman’s love affair with two iconic cities and the confections found in each one.”” – Ann Mah, author of Kitchen Chinese

“”Amy Thomas’s descriptions of the delicious delights in Paris and New York had me almost licking the pages.”  ” – Rachel Khoo, author of Little Paris Kitchen

“”Dessert lovers will devour this one… Amy Thomas draws the reader into the comfort of sweets seemingly found on every street corner in Paris, creating a delectable fantasy world. As a self-professed sugarholic, this memoir/travelogue/dessert guide to New York and Paris is a rare, nostalgic treat – equal parts charm, style, and wit.”” – Pichet Ong, chef and author of The Sweet Spot [amazon]

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE