Throughout the month I come across a fair number of francophile-related articles, blogs, images, books, or videos that I’d like to share with readers. I’ve combined this potpourri of news items into a single post. Below are some of the gems from March. However, if you only have time for one…
For many years, I avoided reading fiction. The world is vast and there is so much to know that I just couldn’t justify reading a novel. In addition, there are so many talented journalists-turned-author that it’s easy to find nonfiction on almost any subject that grabs and holds your attention—history,…
Almost 150 years after the publication of Around the World in 80 Days, people still refer to Jules Verne’s fictional adventure each time someone comes close to breaking a record for circumnavigating the globe. Such was the case for this year’s Vendée Globe, a round-the-world sailing challenge, where the winners…
Shortly after the dark day that marked George Floyd’s murder, a friend of mine posted an article on her Facebook page, written by the Haitian filmmaker, Raoul Peck. While Floyd’s death was hardly a surprising piece of news, given the prevalence of similar incidents, his brutal killing seemed to have…
Back in October, I was reading a post on Bleu Blonde Rouge, a blog by Claudine Hemingway. In it, Hemingway wrote about her favorite French cookbooks. I love to cook so jotted down a couple of the titles to see if I could find them at my library. I was…
Yesterday marked the 6-year anniversary of the savage terrorist attack on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. That morning, two gunmen killed 12 members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff and left 11 injured. I wrote about one of the courageous survivors, Coco, back in 2017. The word courageous, however, doesn’t do…
Last week I began summarizing some of the highlights from The Story of French, by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. My post left off in the midst of the French Revolution. I read much of the book in November. During the week of our election, I was learning that at…
Today, France lands at number 22 in the list of countries when ranked by population size. Yet, French is the 5th most spoken language in the world, behind English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish. It’s an impressive status for a relatively small country—49th in the world in terms of geographic area.…
