Holiday Gift Guide for Francophiles
"No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures," said Samuel Johnson. Agreed. That's why, year after year, HeadButler.com gravitates to French culture. By now, I've now covered so much of it that you could, if so inclined, only give French-connected books and movies at the holidays. Or put them on your wish list. Or --- because you're no hypocrite --- both. FICTION
The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin : Maurice LeBlanc's creation was the French Sherlock Holmes. Except that Lupin was a burglar. A gentleman burglar. A burglar with wit and style. It's a thrill to watch him work. Like the time he breaks into a Baron's residence, takes nothing, but leaves a card for his unwitting host: "Arsene Lupin, gentleman burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."
A Sport and a Pastime : James Salter gets the late nights and parties of Paris exactly. But he's even better when his young, lost protagonist ventures to the small towns, the "real" France, where the smell of wood smoke is in the air and life is played out to the cadence of seasonal change. A sad, sexy (as in dirty-sexy) story that got raves when it was first published, 40 years ago, and reads even better now.
Christmas in Paris, 2002 : Ronald Fried's short, powerful, achingly ironic novel begins with a taxi ride from Charles de Gaulle to Paris. A familiar route to many --- the originality is in the context, the war that everyone knows is coming. It's the story of a middle-aged man in a real marriage: shopping, thinking, coming to terms. This is fiction that reads like great journalism.
Simple Passion : Annie Ernoux is beloved in France for her merciless take on the lives of women. Here, we find a smart woman --- credentialed, with lots of social possibilities --- sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring. That's her life, waiting. Because she never knows when he'll call. And then he does. And shows up for a few hours. And the waiting begins again.
The Foreign Correspondent : Alan Furst is the master of exhaustively researched espionage novels, mostly set in France just before or during World War II. This time out, the main character is Carlo Weisz, a reporter for Reuters in Paris who's also on the editorial board of Liberazione, a Resistance newspaper. In the beginning of the book, the head of the paper is assassinated; Weisz is his logical successor. Complications abound.
TRAVEL
Provence, A-Z : Peter Mayle shares the offbeat information he has gathered while living in Provence for almost two decades. Very little of it is the stuff you find in guidebooks. Much of it is information gathered in cafes, where Mayle is fond of pastis (at 45% alcohol, the most intoxicating drink in the house). All of it makes you want to fly to Paris --- tonight, if possible --- and then take the TGV down to Aix.
Secret Hotels: Extraordinary Values in the World's Most Stunning Destinations : Erik Torkells suggests some small, comparatively cheap hotels in Paris, but it's the rest of the France section that caught my attention. I expected to find all the recommended hotels far from the madding crowd, tucked away on rocky hillsides in the Luberon. But there's a nice selection, all with contact information that includes web sites.
Quiet Corners of Paris : Many tour books promise to deliver "secrets" and never do. This one does. Many times. Its secret: It does not stick to the four or five arrondissements where tourists congregate. Instead, it draws on the entire city --- and thus challenges you to leave your literal "comfort zone" and get out to neighborhoods where real Parisians can be found. And more: really quiet zones: villas, gardens, courtyards, fountains and passages.
MEMOIR
And There Was Light : Jacques Lusseyran went blind when he was 8 years old. At 17, he decided to organize his friends into a resistance unit. Wisely, they appointed him head of recruiting --- his hearing made him a great judge of character. Later he and his friends started an underground newspaper; it would become France-Soir, the most important daily newspaper in Paris. Simply an amazing, inspiring-and-then-some story.
Between Meals : In 1926, A.J. Liebling bungled his first job. It seemed to his father that this was a good time for his son to study for a year in Europe. Liebling pretended to protest. "I'm thinking of getting married," he lied. "Of course, she's ten years older than I am...." His story of his romance --- which was utterly fabricated --- worked like a charm. His father, eager to help his son avoid a disastrous marriage, not only bought him a steamship ticket, he gave him a $2,000 line of credit. And Liebling went to Paris and began to eat.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly : In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine, father of two, friend to many, a successful man taking a test drive in a new BMW. Then he had a stroke that attacked the brain stem. He woke up completely paralyzed. Except for his left eyelid. He could blink. And he "blinked" this one-of-a-kind memoir
FOOD
My Life in France : Julia Child's first meal in France started with oysters served with a pale rye bread and unsalted butter, followed by sole meuniere , "perfectly browned in a sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley." Mr. and Mrs. Child washed it down with a bottle of Pouilly-Fume. They moved on to a green salad and a baguette, fromage blanc and cafe filtre . "Absolute perfection," Julia decided. "The most exciting meal of my life." Later, she'd teach Americans to make that meal.
Pudlo Paris: 2007-2008 : Gilles Pudlowski has produced his first English language edition of his guide to 1,000 Paris restaurants, 300 wine bars, tea shops, cafes and several hundred gourmet groceries. He gives awards: best chef of the year, international restaurant of the year, young chef of the year, bistro of the year --- even best hostess of the year. He lists new restaurants, with ratings (one to three "plates") and prices. He summarizes the "best" restaurants. He collects restaurants that are the "best value for the money." And he smartly organizes this mass of information and opinion by collecting restaurants in arrondisements, with informative short essays at the beginning of each one. What more could you want?
The Ethnic Paris Cookbook : Charlotte Puckette and Olivia Kiang-Snaije have written a cookbook that accesses the remarkable variety of food available in Paris. Here you will find, neatly separated by nationality, whole dinners of recipes from Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia, Vietnam/ Cambodia/Laos/China, Japan, Cameroon/Senegal/The West Indies, Lebanon and Syria.
MOVIES
Love Me Tonight : Rouben Mamoulian starts his '30s classic in Paris as the city awakes. A workman shows up with a pick and starts chipping away at the pavement. Another sweeps. A knife sharpener puts an edge on the first blade of the day. Two cobblers take seats outside their shop and hammer at heels. A woman beats a carpet. It's pure rhythm --- street sound as melody. And it's just a little too much for young Maurice Chevalier, who shuts his window, finishes dressing and heads downstairs. But hey, he's Maurice Chevalier; as he walks down the street, he sings to his neighbors. And soon the comedy begins.
--- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com
