Category: Books The 100-Year Anniversary of Proust’s Final Night on the Town
Pondering Diderot’s Encyclopedia Never Ceases to Blow My Mind

In the fall of 2011, I signed up for a French literature course at Eastern Michigan University. I loved the class and am indebted to our professor, Benjamin Palmer, who improved my understanding of great literature and its relationship to history. I enthusiastically enrolled in a second semester that winter…
Winter Reflections, Assessing a Year of Reading and Writing
The Miser’s Ghost, A Winter’s Cautionary Tale from Quebec

My favorite Christmas story is A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Every year I watch or read some version of this classic tale. Last week, I began wondering if there might be a similarly cherished, yuletide parable from France. I tracked down a dozen acclaimed stories, including two by Molière,…
22 Sensational Reads for the Francophiles on your Gift List
Baudelaire’s Spleen Defies Translation, There Do the Foolhardy Tread
Camus’ Letters to a German Friend, a Warning for Our Times

Sunday, November 7, marks what would have been the 108th birthday of Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus. During World War II, Camus joined the French Resistance, a movement dedicated to overthrowing the Germans. Camus lent his genius to the clandestine effort by working as a journalist and underground newspaper editor.…
The 100-Year Anniversary of Proust’s Final Night on the Town
Pondering Diderot’s Encyclopedia Never Ceases to Blow My Mind

In the fall of 2011, I signed up for a French literature course at Eastern Michigan University. I loved the class and am indebted to our professor, Benjamin Palmer, who improved my understanding of great literature and its relationship to history. I enthusiastically enrolled in a second semester that winter…
Winter Reflections, Assessing a Year of Reading and Writing
The Miser’s Ghost, A Winter’s Cautionary Tale from Quebec

My favorite Christmas story is A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Every year I watch or read some version of this classic tale. Last week, I began wondering if there might be a similarly cherished, yuletide parable from France. I tracked down a dozen acclaimed stories, including two by Molière,…
22 Sensational Reads for the Francophiles on your Gift List
Baudelaire’s Spleen Defies Translation, There Do the Foolhardy Tread
Camus’ Letters to a German Friend, a Warning for Our Times

Sunday, November 7, marks what would have been the 108th birthday of Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus. During World War II, Camus joined the French Resistance, a movement dedicated to overthrowing the Germans. Camus lent his genius to the clandestine effort by working as a journalist and underground newspaper editor.…