When The World Spoke French

Author: Marc Fumaroli
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590173759
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561

Book Description
A New York Review Books Original During the eighteenth century, from the death of Louis XIV until the Revolution, French culture set the standard for all of Europe. In Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany, among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, aristocrats, and artists, French was the universal language of politics and intellectual life. In When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli presents a gallery of portraits of Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French, along with excerpts from their letters or other writings. These men and women, despite their differences, were all irresistibly attracted to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment, whose capital was Paris and whose king was Voltaire. Whether they were in Paris or far away, speaking French connected them in spirit with all those who desired to emulate Parisian tastes, style of life, and social pleasures. Their stories are testaments to the appeal of that famous “sweetness of life” nourished by France and its language.

How to French Country

Author: Sara Silm
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1760762458
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The ultimate guide to surrounding yourself with French country style, wherever you are. From deep in the countryside of southwest France comes a comprehensive guide to surrounding yourself with French country style wherever you are. Capturing the beauty and tranquility of the region, interior designer and journalist Sara Silm distills the unique colors, textures, and flavors of this distinctive corner of the world. Inherent in Sara’s detailed knowledge of French country style are philosophical lines drawn between color, temporality, style, sensation, and season, such that every design choice is a contemplation of time and place. Nowhere is this more clearly felt than in her unique color palettes, inspired by the patina of weather-beaten shutters, of local brick and fading roof tiles, violet-hued ice cream, and rolling hills bursting to life in spring. Coupling detailed, practical design knowledge with evocative notes on rural French life and choice recipes, How to French Country offers a path to gentler living and refocusing on all that we hold dear.

The Everything Essential French Book

Author: Bruce Sallee
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1440576912
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
With easy-to-follow instructions and simple explanations, this portable guide covers the most important basics.

First Start French I

Author: Danielle L. Schultz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781930953666
Category : French language
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
First Start French introduces your child to the lifetime joy of speaking a foreign language. This program gives students in grade levels 3-8 a terrific foundation in grammar and develops a large beginning vocabulary. The step by step teacher guide lays out everything you need to know to help the student, even if you've never studied French before or your skills are rusty. You'll enjoy learning along with them, as they practice conversation, reading and translation, and are introduced to French culture.

The Everything Kids' Learning French Book

Author: Dawn Michelle Baude
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605501735
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
Fun exercises to help you learn français! Bonjour, mon ami! So, you want to learn French but don't know where to start? Start ici, with The Everything Kids' Learning French Book. Inside, you'll find simple exercises, fun facts, tips on pronunciation, and popular phrases that enable you to read and speak French in no time at all. You'll learn how to: Address your family ("Ma famille") and pets ("Mes animaux familiers") Describe holidays and birthdays ("Fêtes et anniversaires") Ask "What time is it?" ("Quelle heure est-il?") Tell your friends, "Let's go outdoors" ("On va dehors") Express your feelings ("Exprimer mes sentiments") Talk about school ("Mon école") and your classes ("Mes cours") Dozens of puzzles and activities--plus an English-French Dictionary--make learning this exciting new language easy, fast, and fun!

When in French

Author: Lauren Collins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014311073X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier—a surprising turn of events for someone who didn’t have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does “I love you” even mean the same thing as “je t’aime”? When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collins—fearful of one day becoming "a Borat of a mother" who doesn’t understand her own kids—decides to answer her questions for herself by learning French. When in French is a laugh-out-loud funny and surprising memoir about the lengths we go to for love, as well as an exploration across culture and history into how we learn languages—and what they say about who we are. Collins grapples with the complexities of the French language, enduring excruciating role-playing games with her classmates at a Swiss language school and accidently telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine. In learning French, Collins must wrestle with the very nature of French identity and society—which, it turns out, is a far cry from life back home in North Carolina. Plumbing the mysterious depths of humanity’s many forms of language, Collins describes with great style and wicked humor the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of learning—and living in—French.

1000 Years of Annoying the French

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453243585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 764

Book Description
The author of A Year in the Merde and Talk to the Snail offers a highly biased and hilarious view of French history in this international bestseller. Things have been just a little awkward between Britain and France ever since the Norman invasion in 1066. Fortunately—after years of humorously chronicling the vast cultural gap between the two countries—author Stephen Clarke is perfectly positioned to investigate the historical origins of their occasionally hostile and perpetually entertaining pas de deux. Clarke sets the record straight, documenting how French braggarts and cheats have stolen credit rightfully due their neighbors across the Channel while blaming their own numerous gaffes and failures on those same innocent Brits for the past thousand years. Deeply researched and written with the same sly wit that made A Year in the Merde a comic hit, this lighthearted trip through the past millennium debunks the notion that the Battle of Hastings was a French victory (William the Conqueror was really a Norman who hated the French) and pooh-poohs French outrage over Britain’s murder of Joan of Arc (it was the French who executed her for wearing trousers). He also takes the air out of overblown Gallic claims, challenging the provenance of everything from champagne to the guillotine to prove that the French would be nowhere without British ingenuity. Brits and Anglophiles of every national origin will devour Clarke’s decidedly biased accounts of British triumph and French ignominy. But 1000 Years of Annoying the French will also draw chuckles from good-humored Francophiles as well as “anyone who’s ever encountered a snooty Parisian waiter or found themselves driving on the Boulevard Périphérique during August” (The Daily Mail). A bestseller in Britain, this is an entertaining look at history that fans of Sarah Vowell are sure to enjoy, from the author the San Francisco Chronicle has called “the anti-Mayle . . . acerbic, insulting, un-PC, and mostly hilarious.”

Belle Greene

Author: Alexandra Lapierre
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 9781609457587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
Based on the true story of Belle da Costa Greene, a woman who defied all odds to carve out a destiny of her own choosing, this is a richly imagined novel bursting with atmosphere, lush period detail, and many unforgettable characters. New York in the 1900s. A young girl fascinated by rare books defies all odds and becomes the director of one of the country's most prestigious private libraries. It belongs to the magnate J. P. Morgan, darling of the international aristocracy and one of the city's richest men. Flamboyant, brilliant, beautiful, Belle is among New York society's most sought after intellectuals. She also hides a secret. Although she looks white, she is African American, the daughter of a famous black activist who sees her desire to hide her origins as the consummate betrayal. Torn between history's ineluctable imperatives and the freedom to belong to the society of her choosing, Belle's drama, which plays out in a violently racist America, is one that resonates forcefully, and illuminatingly even today. The fruit of years of research and interviews, Alexandra Lapierre's magnificent novel recounts the struggles, victories, and heartbreaks of a woman who is free, astonishingly determined, daring, and fully, exuberantly alive.

French Vernacular Books / Livres vernaculaires français (FB) (2 vols.)

Author: Andrew Pettegree
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047422449
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1638

Book Description
This work offers for the first time a complete list of all books published wholly or partially in the French language before 1601. Based on twelve years of investigations in libraries in France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere, it provides an analytical short-title catalogue of over 52,000 bibliographically distinct items, with reference to surviving copies in over 1,600 libraries worldwide. Many of the items described are editions and even complete texts fully unknown and re-discovered by the project. French Vernacular Books is an invaluable research tool for all students and scholars interested in the history, culture and literature of France, as well as historians of the early modern book world. For vols. III & IV please go to French Books III & IV.

The French Book

Author: Henri-Jean Martin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801854194
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
The book as the subject of a distinct historical discipline dates from the landmark publication of L'Apparition du livre by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin in 1958. In this further contribution to his pathbreaking work with Febvre, eminent French historian Henri-Jean Martin explores the role of the book and book industry in early modern France. Martin begins with a sweeping look at the revolutionary role played by the new technology of printing in Europe of the Renaissance and Reformation. Shifting the focus to France, he then examines the political implications of publishing in the reign of Francis I, including such topics as the founding of royal and university libraries, the role of church-state relations, Richelieu's cultural program, and censorship. In revealing case studies of Rouen and Grenoble, Martin pinpoints precisely which books were sold and to which social groups, and explains why the initially successful printers of Rouen were eventually forced out of business by the Parisian courts. Martin also casts a discerning eye on early graphic design—from the first illustrated "coffee table" books purchased by the newly rich to the invention of the paragraph to facilitate reading. And he shows how attempts by the French government to suppress and control publication were eventually thwarted by free market forces from Amsterdam and Neufchatel. This is a book that will be of interest to those who study the history of the book, intellectual history of early modern Europe, and the relation between politics and ideas.