The Loire - River of the Kings

Parodying everyone from classic authors to his own contemporaries, the dazzling and exuberant stories of Rabelais expose human follies with mischievous and often obscene humor. Gargantua depicts a young giant who becomes a cultured Christian knight. Pantagruel portrays Gargantua’s bookish son who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided by wisdom and by his idiotic, self-loving companion, Panurge.

The peasant girl who led an army against the English and placed Charles VII on the French throne has inspired countless books since her death at age 19. While others have claimed Joan the Maid (as she called herself) for every cause from feminism to working-class radicalism, this meticulous volume by two French scholars sticks close to the known facts. The authors make extensive use of contemporary documents that bring to life the turbulent political scene in which Joan operated as well as her forceful personality. Joan followed the directives of voices she believed were sent to her by God; her deep piety, self-assurance, decisiveness, and shrewd intelligence radiate from her letters and from her responses to hostile questioning at the rigged trial that resulted in her being burned alive as a heretic in 1431.

The author exhibits a breathtaking grasp of the physical and cultural context of Queen Eleanor's life, presenting a fuller, more holistic appreciation of a dazzling world whose charms can easily be anesthetized by dull narrative. And from the start, her auburn-haired subject, a live wire in a restrictive society, muse of poets and crusaders, seduces the reader. Weir conveys a deep empathy for the relaxed south of France where Eleanor was raised, a natural home for the gospel of courtly love

New edition features 7 of the most popular tales of one of the greatest of all short-story writers. Included are "La Parure," "Mademoiselle Fifi," "La Maison Tellier," "La Ficelle," "Miss Harriet," "Boule de Suif" and "Le Horla," all reflecting Maupassant's intimate familiarity with Paris and the universality of his creations.

When English botanist Dr. Jane Greenwood travels to France to edit a collection of wildflower drawings, neither she nor Celia Grant, the professional nurserywoman and amateur sleuth who recommends her for the job, anticipates problems. But then Jane goes missing from the chateau where she has been working. Celia, her sleuthing instincts alerted, promptly determines to find her and bring her home. From Jane's letters home, Celia learns of the discord and a hint of buried secrets the botanist found within the family who had hired her. When Jane's body is discovered in the underbrush 20 kilometers from the chateau, Celia's suspicions rest on its quarreling inhabitants.

Let's face it: the French have gotten a bad rap. Mention that you're considering a trip to France and everyone will warn you about rude waiters, supercilious shopkeepers, and snooty concierges who won't give you the time of day--and worse, pretend not to understand your high-school French. Not so, says Polly Platt, author of French or Foe?; "The French are generous, exhilarating friends," but they are different--wonderfully so. The trick to getting along in France is understanding the culture and learning to accept it on French terms instead of your own. Though the book is designed primarily for people who will be living or working in France for extended periods, the lessons Platt teaches about manners, attitudes, and culture are invaluable for even those visitors just passing through.

When Alain-Fournier was killed in battle on the Meuse in 1914, he left behind Le Grand Meaulnes, a novel of wistful enchantment. The tale is recounted by François Seurel, whose father heads the village school where Augustin Meaulnes comes to board. A tall, somber youth of 17, he instantly becomes the class ringleader, and is soon known as le grand Meaulnes. When the youth sets off on an impetuous errand of a few hours and doesn't return for several days, events take a darker turn. The two friends set about retracing Meaulnes's path, and their journeys take them into manhood, when Meaulnes finds at last a way to bring his quest full circle.

France stretches from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, giving it a blend of northern and southern characteristics that can sometimes disconcert its neighbors. For centuries, the more stolid English have looked across the Channel with alternating envy and disapproval at this unpredictable, seductive country, with its flair for style, its dubious taste for the speculative and theoretical, its alarming penchant for revolutions. The French themselves have rarely been in doubt about their cultural pre-eminence, which is perhaps one reason why, at a time when the west has in general been eager to shelter under America’s umbrella and share its culture, France has tended to stand aloof. A healthy suspicion of American influence has marked French policy on a range of issues from its attitude to NATO to its stance on the Middle East, from pursuit of nuclear weapons to protection of the national film industry. France goes its own way. And this irritating, admirable confidence in the superiority of its own arrangements comes ultimately from a pride in its past. No one demonstrated this more clearly than General de Gaulle. France, he explained at the start of his war memoirs, had always seemed to him to have a special destiny: ‘France could not be France without greatness.’ The conviction came to him from his father in a manner that de Gaulle sums up in a single, brief sentence. Quite simply, ‘Il m’en a découvert l’Histoire’ – He revealed to me its History.

When award-winning chef James Haller and his closest friends toasted his sixtieth birthday, he thought that their dream of spending time together in a beautiful house in Europe would remain just a dream. But a year and a half later, they arrived at a charming 17th-century chateau in the Loire Valley that would be their home for the next month. Haller swore not to cook, but the local abundance of fresh foods, herbs, and wines soon had him preparing all the group's meals-and loving it. Best of all, they made many new friends-while sharing priceless moments with old ones. Featuring dozens of delicious recipes, Vie de France is a delightful testament to the joy of good friends, good food, and reaching for your wildest, most wonderful dreams.

Framboise Dartigen relates this story from her point of view as a nine-year-old and as a woman in her 60s. She spent her childhood in a Nazi-occupied French village with her widowed mother and siblings. Knowing that the scent of oranges brought on her mother's severe migraines, Framboise was clever enough or devious enough to hoard orange peel for her own advantage. During their unsupervised play, the children met a young Nazi soldier and were captivated by his charm and the black-market gifts that he gave them. Years later, Framboise, now a widow herself, returns to the village on a quest for the truth about her family's role in a tragic event for which her mother bore the blame and was forced by the townspeople to flee.

An important and prolific French medievalist advances the revisionist thesis that the French state and nation were effectively formed by the early 1200s and not, as many scholars assert, a century later. Duby focuses his book on the period of his own specialized research and closely examines key contemporary sources to show how monarchs of the Capetian house, and notably the 12th-century rulers culminating in Philip II Augustus(1180-1223), used ideas of lordship and kingship to achieve power over their realm. The final two medieval centuries Duby covers more thinly.

When living abroad, there are two rules to be followed: 1 -- If you are lucky enough to find a place you belong, you should never actually live there. And 2 -- Never live with a man you think you could never live without. But then, what fun would that be? In this funny, forthright, and charming memoir, Helen Stevenson chronicles her experiences as a young British expatriate living in the countryside of France. With emotional depth and lyrical sensitivity, Stevenson introduces readers to the myriad residents of the quaint hamlet known only as "le village. Evoking the languid, sensual essence of Mediterranean France, Instructions for Visitors is a very personal revelation of the wonders and the difficulties of relocating one's home -- and one's heart.

Newman offers lively and credible historical fiction as she depicts 12th-century Paris and environs. She centers her tale around 19-year-old Catherine Le Vendeur, a Christian of Jewish blood, and her Saxon husband, Edgar. Edgar, posing as an out-of-luck metalworker, and Catherine, portraying his wife, attempt to discover who has been stealing English church objects, melting them down, and reworking them. Intriguing plot, realistic depictions of contemporary culture, and a spunky young heroine.