Book picks similar to
Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul by Charles Timoney
france
non-fiction
nonfiction
french
Niubi!: The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School
Eveline Chao - 2009
So whether you?re planning a trip to Beijing, flirting with an online acquaintance from Shanghai, or just want to start a fight in Chinatown--Niubi! will ensure that nothing you say is lost in translation.
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce - 1911
There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.
How to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and Advanced Pupils
George Mikes - 1946
George Mikes says, 'the English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.' But they do have a sense of humour - they provide it by buying over three hundred thousand copies of a book that took them quietly and completely apart, a book that really took the Mikes out of them.
Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It
Allan Pease - 1998
Read this book and understand--at last!--why men never listen, why women can't read maps, and why learning each other's secrets means you'll never have to say sorry again.
Dress Like a Parisian
Alois Guinut - 2018
Dress Like a Parisian is a wise and witty guide to finding your personal style, taking inspiration from how real Parisian women dress. With personal stylist and fashion blogger Aloïs Guinut as your guide, you can explore which colors, shapes and styles work best for you, whatever the occasion. Aloïs reveals Parisian style secrets, rejects restrictive fashion rules and shares her favorite shops and brands, demonstrating how you can use fashion to enhance your personality rather than shaping your personality to fashion. In the words of the patron saint of Parisian women, Yves St. Laurent, 'fashions fade, style is eternal.'This book is illustrated with photography shot on the streets of Paris plus illustrations by acclaimed fashion illustrator, Judith van den Hoek, who has worked with Elle, Hermes, Vogue, Prada and Grazia.
The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs
Elaine Sciolino - 2015
"I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs," Sciolino explains, as she celebrates the neighborhood’s rich history and vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows. It was here that Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted circus acrobats, Emile Zola situated a lesbian dinner club in his novel Nana, and François Truffaut filmed scenes from The 400 Blows. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its longtime residents—the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who’s been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers—bringing Paris alive in all of its unique majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris, for cheese and wine, and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing.
Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language
Darach Ó Séaghdha - 2017
As the title suggests, 'Motherfoclóir' takes an irreverent, pun-friendly and contemporary approach to the Irish language. The translations are expanded on and arranged into broad categories that allow interesting connections to be made, and sprinkled with anecdotes and observations about Irish and Ireland itself, as well as language in general. The author includes stories about his own relationship with Irish, and how it fits in with the most important events in his life. This is a book for all lovers of the quirks of language.
Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide to Paris for the Literary Traveler
Noël Riley Fitch - 1989
Covering all the area of Paris that Hemingway and his fellow expatriates once roamed from Left Bank to Right, Noel Riley Fitch provides an intimate visit to major Parisian landmarks as well as to out-of-the-way cafes, hotels and residences immortalized by "Papa" and his friends.
They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases
Howard Rheingold - 1988
From the North Pole to New Guinea, from Easter Island to Tibet, Howard Rheingold explores more than forty familiar and obscure languages to discover genuinely useful (rather than simply odd) words that can open up new ways of understanding and experience life.
L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home
David Lebovitz - 2017
Includes dozens of new recipes.When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country--under baffling conditions--while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.
Word Power Made Easy
Norman Lewis - 1949
As you complete the exercises in this book, you will learn how to tell if you’re using the right word as well as how to pronounce and spell it. You will also learn how to avoid illiterate expressions and how to speak grammatically, without making embarrassing mistakes.A complete handbook for building a superior vocabulary, Word Power Made Easy will teach you how to speak and write with confidence as well as how to read more effectively and efficiently. It will help you to learn more quickly, develop social contacts, and increase your earning power.Each chapter ends with review. Each section ends with a progressive check. Numerous tests will help you increase and retain the knowledge you acquired. Word Power Made Easy does more than just add words to your vocabulary; it teaches ideas and a method of broadening knowledge as an integral part of the vocabulary building process.
Paris in Love
Eloisa James - 2012
Paris in Love: A Memoir chronicles her joyful year in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. With no classes to teach, no committee meetings to attend, no lawn to mow or cars to park, Eloisa revels in the ordinary pleasures of life—discovering corner museums that tourists overlook, chronicling Frenchwomen’s sartorial triumphs, walking from one end of Paris to another. She copes with her Italian husband’s notions of quality time; her two hilarious children, ages eleven and fifteen, as they navigate schools—not to mention puberty—in a foreign language; and her mother-in-law Marina’s raised eyebrow in the kitchen (even as Marina overfeeds Milo, the family dog). Paris in Love invites the reader into the life of a most enchanting family, framed by la ville de l’amour.
Signspotting: Absurd and Amusing Signs from Around the World
Doug Lansky - 2005
A scary thought if you've ever come across any of the publicly posted absurdities that appear in this book: signs about as easy to understand as a Swahili auctioneer (to a non-Swahili speaker) or as well-planned as the dance steps in a mosh pit. With the help of signspotters around the globe, we've assembled a collection of some of the most unintentionally entertaining postings on the planet - we hope they confuse and amuse you!Author: Doug LanskyAbout Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places where they travel.TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia) *#1 in the world market share - source: Nielsen Bookscan. Australia, UK and USA. March 2012-January 2013
Fry's English Delight: Series 1
Stephen Fry - 2009
And, with the help of a Greek removals firm, we also find the origin of the word 'metaphor'.QuotationThe uses and misuses of quotations are revealed, and there is also a frank confession from a quotation compiler, which we cannot divulge here.ClichéFeaturing sick parrots and the cliché crisis that affected the writing of Flaubert, Joyce, and Eliot, and helped shape modern language and culture.©2008 Testbed Audio Ltd; (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks LtdLENGTH: 1 hr and 43 mins
Into A Paris Quartier: Reine Margot's Chapel and Other Haunts of St.-Germain
Diane Johnson - 2005
Now, the paperback edition of her delightful book will take even more Americans to the richly historic part of the city that has always attracted us, from Ben Franklin in the 18th-century to raffish novelist Henry Miller in the 20th.Modern St.-Germain is lively and prosperous, and fifty years ago its heady mix of jazz and existentialism defined urbane cool, but Johnson takes a longer view. "Beside the shades of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf," she writes, "there is another crowd of resident ghosts... misty figures in plumed hats whose fortunes and passions were enacted among these beautiful, imposing buildings." From her kitchen window, she looks out on a chapel begun by Reine Margot, wife of Henri IV; nearby streets are haunted by the shades of two sinister cardinals, Mazarin and Richelieu, as well as four famed queens and at least five kings. Delacroix, Corot, Ingres, David, and Manet all lived in St.-Germain; Oscar Wilde died there; and everybody who was anybody visited sooner or later.With her delicious imagination and wry, opinionated voice, Diane Johnson makes a companionable and fascinating guide to a classic neighborhood as cosmopolitan as it is quintessentially French.