The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at other, but writing always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the 'infra-ordinary', the things we do every day - eating, sleeping, working - and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing.This volume contains a selection of Georges Perec's non-fiction works, along with a charming short story, 'The Winter Journey'. It also includes notes and an introduction describing Perec's life and career.

    It is a classic of honest French cooking and good writing. Buy it, read it, eat it." --Lydie Marshall"I need this new edition badly because Simple French Food is the most dog-eared, falling-apart book in my library. Here it is newly bound to enrich one's life." --Kermit Lynch, author of Adventures on the Wine Route"Simple French Food has the most marvelous French food to appear in print since Elisabeth David's French Provincial Cooking.... The book's greatest virtue is that the author...really teaches you to cook French in a way I've never seen before. Here you acquire the methods, the tour de main, the tricks that are the heart and essence of French food, unforgettable once acquired in this book because of their logical, well-explained presentation." --Nika Hazelton, The New York Times"I am unable to find an ad equate adjective to express my enthusiasm.... I find Simple French Food marvelous. I have never read a book on French cuisine that has so excited and absorbed me." --Simone Beck

    Against the backdrop of a glittering court, their relationship and personalities unfold toward the violent upheavals of revolution in 1789. This brilliantly researched dual biography celebrates two of history's least known and most consistently misrepresented royal figures.

    In Charmed Circle, James R. Mellow has re-created this fascinating world and the complex woman who dominated it. His engaging narrative illuminates Stein’s writing—now celebrated along with the work of such literary giants as Joyce and Woolf—including her difficult early periods, which adapted cubism and abstraction to the written word. Rich with detail and insight, it conveys both the serene rhythms of daily life with her devoted partner, Alice B. Toklas, and the radical pulse and dramatic upheavals of her exciting era.Spanning the years from 1903, when Stein first arrived in Paris, to her final days at the end of the Second World War, Charmed Circle is a penetrating and lively account of a writer at the heart of modernity.

    

    An addict now, he seeks help at a clinic and listens to the oft-repeated exhortation to find, a consuming interest into which he can channel all his energies and aspirations. Butler concentrates on the one interest the war has left him - heroin. The combination of his past contacts as a chemistry student at University and his present contact as a drug pusher pave the way to an obsession. Provided with a secret laboratory by the head of the drug organization which employs him, he succeeds in perfecting a technique for producing the purest heroin ever refined. This however, is only the beginning of Butler's cure.

    Today he is recognized as a highly influential founding father of modern art, who emphasized the use of flat planes and bright, nonnaturalistic color in conjunction with symbolic or primitive subjects. Familiarity with Gauguin the writer is essential for a complete understanding of the artist. The Writings of a Savage collects the very best of his letters, articles, books, and journals, many of which are unavailable elsewhere. In brilliantly lucid discussions of life and art Gauguin paints a triumphant self-portrait of a volcanic artist and the tormented man within.

    This compact volume gathers brief, pithy essays Berlioz wrote on Beethoven's nine symphonies, his opera, Fidelio, and his piano sonatas and trios. Berlioz vividly depicts the salient features of the music with observations that are acute and passionate, as valuable for musicians as for amateurs. Beyond its astute commentary on the music, however, Berlioz's book offers a rare firsthand look at the reception and reputation accorded Beethoven's music in the decades following his death. Berlioz transcribes the comments of amateurs leaving the conservatoire after a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and provides a mocking glimpse of the French appreciation of the great German composer: What stands in the way of the music of 'Fidelio' as regards the Parisian public is ... the great disdain of the composer for sonorous effects which are not justified. He addresses Beethoven's skillful use of the orchestra as an instrument of drama and the general disapprobation that greeted this approach. He also includes a satirical piece on the fad of calling up the spirit of a composer and transcribing new, posthumous compositions. Berlioz's essays testify to the tumult caused by Beethoven's music in his time and offer ways to approach the music that remain enlightening and fresh.

    

    A contented, uneventful life is no life at all as far as I'm concerned. I said I thought life was a sick joke. That doesn't mean I'm a pessimist. It may be sick, but it's still a joke; it's still funny. I've no illusions about the absurdity of life, but I'm still cheerful about it. Twenty-six years ago, a short novel called Bonjour Tristesse, written by an unknown eighteen-year-old, was published in France. Called by one reviewer a beautifully written malicious little tale, the story about a young girl who drives her potential stepmother to suicide sold over one million copies, was translated into twelve languages and became a modern classic. Francoise Sagan, its young author, became a legend and her fast life-style a symbol of postwar cynicism. As celebrity-seeking journalists moved in and kept the public informed (and misinformed) about her expensive tastes, changing lovers, passion for drink, gambling and sports cars, Sagan continued to write novels, plays and film scripts, avoiding the public eye as much as possible. Now, in this extended interview prepared by her French publisher, we have the opportunity to meet the real woman behind the myth. At forty-five we find her witty, simple and dazzlingly profound as she talks about her childhood, love, loneliness, money, fame, politics, drinking, predilections, writing, the theatre and films, friendship, religion, happiness, death, marriage. In these conversations it is clear that Sagan speaks as she writes, and she writes superbly. To read Nightbird is to be in the company of a fascinating woman.

    I should like to know that they will not be forgotten, that the divine flame that burned in their hearts will be understood. At the beginning, we described ourselves by groups of letters and numbers; later we adopted names of animals: Eagle, Humming Bird, Tiger, Ermine. The Germans called us Noah's Ark.

    

    The writerss considered include Keats, Tieck, E.T.A. Hoffman, Heine, Eichendorff, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Swinburne, Beardsley, William Morris, Yeats, Giraudoux and Thomas Mann.

    Langbein traces its development, which was at its most intense during the reign of Queen Mary. He shows how the common law developed a system of official investigation and prosecution that incorporated the medieval institution of the jury trial. He places equal emphasis on the role of the justices of the peace as public prosecutors. The second half of the book compares the English system with those of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) and France. He concludes by refuting the popular opinion that the English were strongly indebted to continental models. "This is an excellent work of scholarship, exhibiting wide research, erudition and analytical ability." --Joseph H. Smith, Harvard Law Review 88 (1974-1975) 485 JOHN LANGBEIN is Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. He has held academic positions at Stanford University, Oxford University, the Max-Planck-Institut fur Europaische Rechtsgeschichte and the Max-Planck-Institut fur Auslandisches und Internationales Strafrecht. Langbein is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Academy of Comparative Law, the International Association of Procedure Law, and other organizations in the fields of legal history and comparative law. Some of his most distinguished publications and articles include History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009), Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancient Regime (1977), and "The Supreme Court Flunks Trusts," Supreme Court Review (1991).

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.