Best of
France

1987

Brassai: Paris By Night


Brassaï - 1987
    First published in French in 1932, this new edition brings one of Brassa's finest works back into print. The back alleys, metro stations, and bistros he photographed are at turns hauntingly empty or peopled by prostitutes, laborers, thugs, and lovers. "Paris by Night" is a stunning portrait of nighttime in the City of Light, as captured by its most articulate observer. 62 photos.

A Woman's Story


Annie Ernaux - 1987
    Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to "capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris." She explores the bond between mother and daughter, tenuous and unshakable at once, the alienating worlds that separate them, and the inescapable truth that we must lose the ones we love. In this quietly powerful tribute, Ernaux attempts to do her mother the greatest justice she can: to portray her as the individual she was. She writes, "I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world."

Minou


Mindy Bingham - 1987
    A cat who does not know how to take care of herself is abandoned in the streets of Paris and discovers self-reliance by working as a mouser at the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Practicalities


Marguerite Duras - 1987
    Between themselves they talk only about the practicalities of life", declares Duras in this collection of her transcribed conversations with friend Jerome Beaujour. Some of her free-ranging meditations are short and deceptively simple, while many are autobiographical and reveal her most intimate thoughts about motherhood, her struggle with alcohol, her love for a younger man, and more.

Louis XIV


Olivier Bernier - 1987
    His court at the Palace of Versailles became the most dazzling on the Continent, and through his intelligence and cunning, he made France the leading power of Europe. Now, in this masterful biography, historian Olivier Bernier brilliantly recreates Louis XIV's world to reveal the secrets of this monarch's unequaled sovereignty and to explore the singular mystique that surrounds him today. Not only was Louis heir to his father's throne, he felt he was divinely chosen to rule France. From the year he became king at the age of thirteen, he oversaw every aspect of government, from waging war and making political appointments to supervising the building of his many palaces. Along with political treachery that marked Louis XIV's long reign, Bernier also brings to light the personal scandals. We witness the poignant resignation of Louis XIV's queen to her husband's parade of mistresses and illegitimate children, the infamous intrigue when the king's brother was accused of poisoning his wife in a jealous rage, and the momentous building of Versailles, not an act of monstrous self-indulgence that bankrupted the nation but the visible expression of Louis XIV's new monarchy - his ingenious methods of centering all activity around court life, thus preventing his courtiers from fomenting rebellion. Under the Sun King, architecture, painting, music, and theater flourished, making France not only a great political force but a paradigm of fashion and culture as well. Louis XIV takes us from the grandeur of Versailles to the battlefields of the countryside, from the bedrooms of the king's mistresses to the chambers of his ministers, and presents an engrossing portrait of royal life and a commanding leader.

Floyd On France: Learn To Cook The Floyd Way


Keith Floyd - 1987
    Easy-to-follow, how-to diagrams. Color photos of the finished dishes.

The Bonnot Gang: The Story of the French Illegalists


Richard Parry - 1987
    It is the story of how the anarchist taste for illegality developed into illegalism - the theory that theft is liberating. And how a number of young anarchists met in Paris in the years before the first world war, determined to live their lives to the full, regardless of the inevitable - and tragic - consequences. A gripping historical thriller, Parry narrates their lives and background - a Paris of riots, strikes and savage repression. A stronghold of foreign exiles and home-grown revolutionaries. Victor Serge and 'l'anarchie' the individualist weekly. Their robberies, daring and violent, would give them a lasting notoriety in France. Their deaths, as spectacular as their lives, would make them a legend amongst revolutionaries the world over. Not only that, but they were all vegetarians, who drank only water!

Marcel Duchamp: Manual of Instructions: Étant donnés


Marcel Duchamp - 1987
    First published more than twenty years ago, the manual has had far-reaching ramifications for the study of Étant donnés and Duchamp. Illustrated with 116 black-and-white Polaroids taken by the artist and 35 pages of his handwritten notes and sketches, the revised edition includes a new essay by Michael R. Taylor on the pivotal importance of the manual to an understanding of Duchamp’s artistic practice as well as the first English translation of the artist’s text.

Two Weeks in the Midday Sun


Roger Ebert - 1987
    

Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944 (Revised)


Henry Russo - 1987
    In this provocative study, Henry Rousso examines how this proud nation--a nation where reality and myth commingle to confound understanding--has dealt with les ann es noires. Specifically, he studies what the French have chosen to remember--and to conceal.

The Interior Realization


Hubert Benoît - 1987
    Benoit, unfolding his ideas in a simple and clear way, which is the result of his long-standing commitment to metaphysical tradition. Although man is the only being on Earth capable of Inner Realization, he is still subject to a series of inherited, biological, and environmental laws that determine every moment of his course. Man wants to escape the inner slavery in which he lives, he must sacrifice his false ego for the sake of the true Self, he must seek, along with theoretical knowledge, True Understanding. (FROM PRESENTATION TO THE BOOK RETURN)

Rodin: A Biography


Frederic V. Grunfeld - 1987
    Beautifully written and illustrated, Rodin is the definitive biography of a man whose influence on sculpture was as profound as Michelangelo's.

Cognac


Nicholas Faith - 1987
    The second edition won the André Simon prize, Britain’s premier wine and spirit writing prize.

Medieval European Coinage: Volume 1, the Early Middle Ages


Philip Grierson - 1987
    It starts with the Vandals, Visigoths, Burgundians and other Germanic invaders of the Empire, whose coins were modelled on contemporary issues of the Western or Eastern emperors. The coinage of the Franks is followed from early Merovingian times through to the establishment and subsequent fragmentation of the Carolingian empire. Italy is represented by the coinages of the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Carolingians and popes down to the Ottoman conquest in the mid-tenth century. The coinage of the Anglo-Saxons is traced from the introduction of minting in the early seventh century to the emergence of a united kingdom during the first half of the tenth century, including the aberrant coinages of Northumbria and the Anglo-Viking coinages of the Danelaw.

Picture History of the Normandie: With 190 Illustrations


Frank O. Braynard - 1987
    Extensive text. "A meticulous and exciting photo essay..." — New York Times Book Review.

The Birth of France: Warriors, Bishops and Long-Haired Kings


Katharine Scherman - 1987
    

Taste of Provence


Leslie Forbes - 1987
    The author's distinctive, full-color illustrations punctuate this evocative account of an enchanting culinary adventure.

Art and Politics of the Second Empire: The Universal Expositions of 1855 and 1867


Patricia Mainardi - 1987
    Trade paperback. Well written, often witty textbook discussion of the shifting trends in art in the mid-1800's in England, Belgium, and Germany influenced artists in France, and the social/political impact in France that came from this.

France in the Middle Ages 987-1460: From Hugh Capet to Joan of Arc


Georges Duby - 1987
    He takes the evolution of power and the emergence of the French state as his central themes, and guides the reader through complex - and, in many respects, still unfamiliar, yet fascinating terrain. He describes the growth of the castle and the village, the building blocks of the new Western European civilization of the second millenium AD.

From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the Middle Ages


Eugene Vance - 1987
    Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance has been discussed since the 1940s as a shift from a Latinate culture to one based on a vernacular language, and, since the 1960s, as a shift from orality to literacy. From Topic to Tale focuses on this multifaceted transition, but it poses the problem in different terms: it shows how a rhetorical tradition was transformed into a textual one, and ends ultimately in a discussion of the relationship between discourse and society.The rise of French vernacular literacy in the twelfth century coincided with the emergence of logic as a powerful instrument of the human mind. With logic come a new concern for narrative coherence and form, a concern exemplified by the work of Chretien de Troyes. Many brilliant poetic achievements crystallized in the narrative art of Chretien, establishing an enduring tradition of literary technique for all of Europe. Eugene Vance explores the intellectual context of Chretien's vernacular literacy, and in particular, the interaction between the three "arts of language" (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) compromising the trivium. Until Vance, few critics have studied the contribution of logic to Chretiens poetics, nor have they assessed the ethical bond between rationalism and the new heroic code of romance.Vance takes Chretien de Troyes' great romance, Yvain ou le chevalier au lion,as the centerpiece of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. It is also central to his own thesis, which shows how Chretien forged a bold new vision of humans as social beings situated between beasts and angels and promulgated the symbolic powers of language, money, and heraldic art to regulate the effects of human desire. Vance's reading of the Yvain contributes not only to the intellectual history of the Middle Ages, but also to the continuing dialogue between contemporary critical theory and medieval culture.Eugene Vance is professor of French and comparative literature at Emory University and principal editor of a University of Nebraska series, Regents Studies in Medieval Culture. Wlad Godzich is director of the Center for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minnesota and co-editor of the series Theory and History of Literature.

LaSalle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf: Three Primary Documents


Robert S. Weddle - 1987
    The first non-Spanish effort to settle areas along the Gulf of Mexico is seen from the perspectives of La Salle's engineer; a Spanish pilot who searched for the French colony; and two French lads who, orphaned as a result of the Fort Saint-Louis massacre, lived first among the Texas Indians, then the Spaniards. The engineer Minet relates both La Salle's 1682 exploration of the Mississippi River and his 1685 voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, from which Minet himself returned to France and prison rather than share the fate of the colonists. The pilot Juan Enríquez Barroto recounts the Spaniards' 1687 circumnavigation of the Gulf, the finding of La Salle's wrecked ships, and the first close examination of Texas and Louisiana bays and rivers, including the Mississippi passes. Among the few survivors of La Salle's venture, the two Talon brothers returned to France as adults to give information that was vital to a new undertaking, Iberville's Mississippi colony. In an unparalleled adventure narrative and exploration account, they describe the land, its flora and fauna, and the natives' lives and languages--data of incalculable historical value. From all three documents, significant sidelights emerge: Minet's description of the English colony of Jamestown, Enríquez's finding of Spanish castaways among the Atákapa Indians, and the Talons' description of life in seventeenth-century Mexico. With careful scholarly attention--historical introductions, annotation, and commentaries by noted authorities--the documents emphasize the tendency of modern observers to ascribe to La Salle a knowledge of geography that simply was not possible in his time. They lead the editors to a somewhat surprising conclusion about why the vaunted explorer landed in Texas when he was seeking the Mississippi.

LAROUSSE TRADITIONAL FRENCH COOKING


Curnonsky - 1987