Best of
France

1981

Banners of Silk


Rosalind Laker - 1981
    Louise Vemet. Raised in the slums of Paris. Coming of age around the splendor and corruption of the Second Empire. She ruled the world of fashion, clothing the most fabled women of title and of pleasure in a society where even sin had to have style. She took as her lover a nobleman she could never wed -- and gave a name to their child by entering into a passionless marriage. Sweeping from the Paris of Louis Napoleon to the England of Queen Victoria... and from the depths of despair to the heights of joy and fulfillment... this is the unforgettable saga of a woman of daring and destiny -- and the dazzling world of French haute couture she helped create....

Joan of Arc: Her Story


Régine Pernoud - 1981
    From the French peasant girl who led an army to the icon burned at the stake, Joan has been a blank slate on which thousands have written. Pernoud and Clin clear away the myths so that modern readers can see Joan as she was and include a glossary of important individuals, historical events and interpretations of Joan through the ages. Joan of Arc: Her Story is the thrilling life of a woman who obsesses us even to this day.

The Crystal Bucket: Television Criticism from "The Observer," 1976-79


Clive James - 1981
    His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable.'Thus the judges of the British Press Awards, in naming Clive James Critic of the Year for 1981. The Crystal Bucket offers a further selection of his inimitable 'visions before midnight ...''C.J. didn't get where he is today just by being funny. He is humane, liberal and compassionate ... What he writes is always pertinent and always witty ... We own him a deep debt of gratitude.' —Gavin Ewart, Listener'Few critics have a more unerring ear for woolliness and doubletalk or a more scathing and entertaining way of dealing with it.' —Lesley Garner, Good Housekeeping'He is one of the most remarkable figures in British cultural life at the moment: a poet and gifted literary critic who is also genuinely liked by the mass audience.' —Michael Mason, London Review of Books'One of the few columnists who make you laugh aloud ... if there were angels he would be on their side: and that would certainly include Charlie’s Angels.' —Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times

My Longest Night


Genevieve Duboscq - 1981
    She and her family, including an illiterate, abusive, alcoholic but resourceful father, rescued and sheltered scores of them. In a childlike style that reflects the excitement of those dramatic, danger-filled days, she relives the emotions of the irrepressible and plucky young heroine as she and her mother nursed the wounded and comforted the dying, both American and German, while her father salvaged precious stores from the water. Duboscq, severely injured and disfigured in a land-mine explosion that killed her brother, credits surviving five years of surgical procedures, and the tribulations of later life, in part to the inspiration she derived from the suffering and bravery of the soldiers she met during this childhood experience, an act of courage for which she was awarded France's Legion of Honor.

The Cordon Bleu Cookbook


Dione Lucas - 1981
    Over 350 recipes, from the founder of the Cordon Bleu cooking schools.

The Family Idiot 1: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857


Jean-Paul Sartre - 1981
    Yet critics have argued about the precise nature of this novel, or biography, or "criticism-fiction" which is the summation of Sartre's philosophical, social, and literary thought. Sartre writes, simply, in the preface to the book: "The Family Idiot is the sequel to The Question of Method. The subject: what, at this point in time, can we know about a man? It seemed to me that this question could only be answered by studying a specific case." "A man is never an individual," Sartre writes, "it would be more fitting to call him a universal singular. Summed up and for this reason universalized by his epoch, he in turn resumes it by reproducing himself in it as singularity. Universal by the singular universality of human history, singular by the universalizing singularity of his projects, he requires simultaneous examination from both ends." This is the method by which Sartre examines Flaubert and the society in which he existed. Now this masterpiece is being made available in an inspired English translation that captures all the variations of Sartre's style—from the jaunty to the ponderous—and all the nuances of even the most difficult ideas. Volume 1 consists of Part One of the original French work, La Constitution, and is primarily concerned with Flaubert's childhood and adolescence.

France, 1848-1945: Anxiety and Hypocrisy


Theodore Zeldin - 1981
    Analyzes the Frenchman's unique national identity, attitudes towards foreigners, education, and intellectual and cultural development from the late 1840's through the 1900's.

Proletarian Nights: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France


Jacques Rancière - 1981
    Through a study of worker-run newspapers, letters, journals, and worker-poetry, Rancière reveals the contradictory and conflicting stories that challenge the coherence of these statements celebrating labor.This updated edition includes a new preface by the author, revisiting the work twenty years since its first publication in France.

Pounding The Pavements, Beating The Bushes, And Other Pataphysical Poems


Raymond Queneau - 1981
    

Marie Antoinette


Desmond Seward - 1981
    It was not the sansculottes who first called her ‘L’Autrichienne’ or accused her of lesbianism: the campaign of vilification and scurrilous ballads originated among the nobility, even the royal family. Posterity sees her as foolish, immoral and devious, as a meddler in politics who unduly influenced her husband, the amiable and incompetent Louis XVI. Re-examining correspondence and memoirs, Desmond Seward finds a different Marie Anttoinette: strong-minded, religious, devotedly maternal, surrounded by enemies, forced by her husband’s lethargy to intrigue as best she could to save the monarchy. She failed, but could any woman have done better in Revolutionary France? This biography tells the perennially fascinating drama of Marie Antoinette’s life, from the pleasure-filled early years at the Petit Trianon to the terror and humiliation of her imprisonment with her family, and the dignity with which she faced death.

Take Care of Josette: A Memoir in Defense of Occupied France


Jacqueline Wolf - 1981
    The author recalls how she and her sister survived in Nazi-occupied France after their parents were arrested by the Gestapo.

Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790: Volume IV


Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier - 1981
    As leader of the American troops in Virginia from April through September 1781, Lafayette played a major role in planning this campaign; the greatest American victory of the war was also an outstanding personal triumph.In this volume Lafayette's correspondents include American military figures such as Washington, Greene, Steuben, and Wayne; the British commanders Phillips and Cornwallis; and such civil authorities as Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, William Davies, and Thomas Sim Lee. Their exchanges provide a vivid picture, with all the immediacy and authenticity that only documents can give, of the problems and frustrations of the campaign, and they draw attention to the specific decisions that led to the allied containment of the British forces.

The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the 18th Century


Daniel Roche - 1981
    Roche's highly readable style and use of contemporary quotations enliven the reader's view of eighteenth-century Paris and Parisians.

France Overseas: The Great War and the Climax of French Imperial Expansion


Christopher Andrew - 1981
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