France Books

Norman Bogner's new novel, "The Deadliest Art", is fantastic! It is a sequel to "To Die In Provence", but it can easily be read on its own. If you read this book, you'll definitely want to read the first book anyway. The story follows French detective Michel Danton as he struggles to honor his promise to his new bride to give up his dangerous work, while being presented with a case of unimaginable horror. The book alternates between the actions of the criminals and their pursuers in a non-synchronous manner that works perfectly. "To Die In Provence" was a great mystery, plunging one into the customs and culture of the South of France. "The Deadliest Art" surpasses it, with an even deeper immersion into French psyche and attitude, coupled with an exploration of the Venice of Southern California. As you are simultaneously drawn into the madhouse of the killers and Michel Danton's increasing desperation, you won't be able to put this book down!

While agreeing with the other readers' comments, I was most fascinated by the storytelling device that Norman Bogner invented in this novel: Unsynchronized chronology of converging stories. This differs from standard thriller technique in which the point of view swings back and forth between the good guy and bad guy like the arm of a metronome or clock pendulum, with the story driven by advancing time.

The novel opens in Provence, France, where Bogner reintroduces us to Det. Michael Danton and art historian Jennifer Bowen, now in a state of prenuptial bliss. Next, a continent away in Venice, California, Bogner introduces murderous Garrett Lee Brant "and his beautiful Eve" who are just stepping out for a millennium New Year's party hosted mammary-enhanced Heather Malone, Garrett's benefactor and sometime lover. Garrett is a frustrated artist who is fascinated by Gauguin, with whom he "holds regular conversations." (His back story reveals the ability to speak in a number of voices.) Garrett has received no recognition for his work on canvas but is enjoying enormous commercial success doing tatoos on the Venice (CA) boardwalk. Eve is skilled in the art of makeup. Switch to Provence where Michael is called to investigate a girl's body washed up on the beach. Switch back to Heather Malone's party, an upscale S&M affair. Heather introduces to Mr. Jan Korteman, a Belgian photographer who specializes in high-grade pornography. Eve makes her own moves and a four-way psychological sex drama unfolds.

And thus two "parallel" stories evolve, with Michael investigating the girl's death and consoling the parents and with Jan taking Garrett and Eve to live as his house guests in Belgium where they engage in a sinister artistic collaboration. The stories evolve asynchronously: The protagonists working slowly to stop the crimes that the antagonists have yet to commit. This yarn is not driven by the beat of a metronome. It is driven by the fascination of the reader who realizes that by the end of the book the two stories must converge. As the book begins to run out of pages, the antagonists' story accelerates and catches up with the protagonists, with fascinating and deadly results. Bogner has invented a new technique in thriller fiction: Converging stories told in warped time.

And as if this was not clever enough, Bogner throws in one final twist which will make the reader pinch himself, turn back to the first page and read the story once more. "The Deadliest Art" is high art, every bit as clever as "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari."

As a Southern California mystery writer, I genuinely enjoyed Mr. Bogner's previous novel, TO DIE IN PROVENCE. I was not aware of this follow-up novel, THE DEADLIEST ART, until I read a glowing review of it in THE LA TIMES. Now that I've read this new work, I can attest that that wise TIMES critic was correct. THE DEADLIEST ART is a winner. In this novel, Michel Danton is back on the scene. He is preparing to marry Jennifer Bowen, the American professor who saved his life in Bogner's previous book. Events intervene. An acid-scarred body of an American junior golfer is found on a beach and other murders occur. The police begin their investigation, and Bogner presents flashbacks of the criminals in alternate chapters. The flashbacks begin in Venice Beach in California, near my home turf. The story works. Bogner captures his settings pefectly. His characters are vividly drawn. THE DEADLIEST ART is an excellent crime fiction work.

Some might have said that Norman Bogner was playing bad poker and attempting to draw to an inside straight when he wrote `To Die In Provence' in 1998. After all, he was a writer of mainstream fiction -- Seventh Avenue, The Madonna Complex, California Dreamers, among others - and the Provence book is a mystery. But after you read it you find it is much more than a mystery. The major characters, Michel Danton, chief investigator for the Special Circumstances Section of the French Judicial Police, and Jennifer Bowen, an American art history professor, remain with you and breathe on, as well as a host of minor characters. You find that you want to know more and that is a sign of a good book. The author filled his straight and won the hand.
What is meant by `more than a mystery'? I mean that the author has widened the scope, brought more to the table. Mysteries usually present the good man or good woman, usually a detective or cop, who then pursues the bad guy who has perpetrated a crime on usually good folks. The progression is linear from start to finish with few detours. Subplots are usually absent along with any serious reflections from the hero, minor characters appear and disappear after they help the hero, the bad guys are caught, resolution is complete, and a new book will appear next year. Along the way it is sometimes difficult to suspend disbelief because the hero carries a 25 shot 6-shooter. Examples are MacDonald's Travis, Parker's Spenser, Grafton's Kinsey, Child's Reacher, White's Doc Ford and a thousand others. A lot of these are good men and women detecting, pursuing and catching the bad folks in very good books. I've read them and like them. Norman Bogner, on the other hand, takes a lot of time defining and exploring his characters. With precise use of literary hydrofloric acid he etches very real people in glass. Because the people are real they have flaws and sometimes the glass fractures because of internal struggles within the characters, as well as cracking under the pressure of the externals not under their control. The crimes, along with the accompanying mystery/detective motif, the setting in southern France, and the pyscho-killer, presented in `To Die In Provence' act as a catalyst to bring the strengths and weaknesses of Michel and Jennifer, as well as others, to the surface and we see them struggle and reflect and we wince and fret over them and we want them to `grow out of it' and overcome. We want to know the answer to the question, `If it doesn't kill you, does it make you stronger'?
Bogner uses the same deft strokes to paint the canvas of his settings and the minor characters evolving in the background. Whether we want to or not we painlessly and relentlessly learn about the town of Aix-en-Provence, a good French restaurant, food, wine, and the friends, acquaintances, and parents of Michel, the French Judicial system, and, most surprising and different, how a killer operates and what makes him tick within the clock of the mystery. As one reads larger, more encompassing, questions surface. How is a man's behavior affected by his origin? How can a rich young girl-woman be captivated by a killer? The latter, of course, is the `Manson' question. If you want to know how the author answers these, read the book
After an intervening book, `Honor Thy Wife', a `mainstream' novel, Norman Bogner has returned with another compelling mystery, `The Deadliest Art.' The author, not content with leaving Michel and Jennifer in literary limbo, brings them back in an even more intricate plot. While it is nice to have read the previous book, it is not at all necessary for Bogner, with wide reach and skill, reintroduces you with great detail. And a whole new set of questions is asked while the `mystery' evolves. A young girl's body washes ashore near Aix-en-Provence. Her back is disfigured. Why? Thus, the mystery is triggered. Danton takes charge of the investigation and the backgrounds change, ranging from the back alleys of San Antonio, Texas, to Bruges in Belgium, the ever present Provence in France and, finally, to Venice, California. Again we relentlessly but painlessly learn about art, food, places and people, French and American cultures and, amazingly, tattoos. While the mystery unfolds and the murders pile up so do the larger questions. Bogner attacks the question of why, especially in America, are we so intent on being someone else, where is the benefit in illusion, what is art, and where are we going. Along with this the author has created a killer and his accomplices so diabolical and sociopathic and tied and knotted them to art in such a clever way that future villains may be defined as Bogner-esque in scope. When the book finally and fittingly ends, it ends with exploding revelation in Venice, California. Today, standing on the Venice Boardwalk in front of the Small World Bookstore, both of which front the frequently polluted Pacific Ocean, one can watch the unending parade of current American Culture before you in all its glory. One can only smile and nod one's head at the author's choice of a concluding locale. And one realizes that `The Deadliest Art' has presented us with a slice of American culture presented as a reflection of ourselves. Whether we want to or not. If one has read `From Dawn To Decadence' by Jacques Barzun, that giant tome, or Morris Berman's, `The Twilight Of American Culture', or watched 95% of recent American movies or television, one cannot help but see the undercurrents in `The Deadliest Art.' The author has succeeded again in giving us not only a compelling mystery but a compelling novel. More important, he has asked tough questions. If you read one book, you'll want to read the other.

This is my first Michel Danton mystery novel, and I will definitely be reading the first book in this series, "To Die In Provence" and be keeping an eye out for future Michel Danton mystery novels. Hard edged and gripping, this kind of mystery novel is not my usual fare, however I was quickly won over and found it quite difficult to put this book down. The identity of the murderer and his cohorts is known from the very beginning, so that this mystery novel is not so much about the authour engaging the reader to play armchair detective; rather "The Deadliest Art" is more of a psychological study about the workings of a deranged mind, and of the sway that this mind has over those that come into contact with it.

Michel Danton is busy preparing for his upcoming marriage to Jennifer Bowen, keeping his quarrelsome chef-parents in check, getting to know his about-to-be mother-in-law, and regretfully contemplating his resignation as commander of the Special Circumstances Section of the Police Judiciare (he had promised Jennifer that he's give up his very dangerous job for something a little more sedate), when a body of a young girl washes up on one of the beautiful Provence beaches. A check with missing persons reveals that the body is that of 13 year old Caroline Davis, an American who had been on holiday with her parents in Bruges, and who the Belgian police believe was kidnapped by unknown American woman. A preliminary autopsy reveals that the girl had been sexually assaulted, and that her body had been disfigured by some kind of acid wash. To Michel, it becomes obvious that the girl had been specially selected for whatever horror she had been put through. With little to go on, Michel and his team begin sifting through every little piece of information that they can get at, hoping for a breakthrough, when they receive news that there been two more kidnapping attempts. But the women involved in each kidnapping seems to be a different one. Is there a whole bevy of crazed women on the loose kidnapping young girls? Michel would like to be able to concentrate on his upcoming wedding, but finds his attention continuously being taken up by this strange murder-kidnapping case. Will he be able to catch the mind behind this criminal spree before another girl turns up dead?

"The Deadliest Art" has two plot-lines that work quite independently of each other until they intersect in the last few chapters, and Norman Bogner does a wonderful job of juxtaposing each plot line without missing beat. One plot line deals with the police investigation and Michel's upcoming marriage ceremony. The other plot line deals with the murderer's life, motivation, the murderer's losing grip of reality, and the spell that the murderer casts on all those around. Eventhough the murderer's identity is revealed within the first few chapters, I'll not go into too much depth about this particular plot line, because it was this plot line that was gripping and held my interest. I do wish however that Norman Bogner had spent a little more time on the police investigation of this kidnapping-murder than he had done. Uncovering the sad, bizarre and shocking history of the murderer lent a touch of horror to this mystery novel that was engrossing, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if he had concentrated more on the police investigation that he did on Miche Danton's private life.

Nitpicking aside, "The Deadliest Art" is an engrossing read, and worth all it's rave reviews.

This is both a great read and an important historical document. Fanny Trollope was the mother of Anthony Trollope, perhaps the most prolific English novelist of the nineteenth century and my favorite. Fanny's husband was ineffectual in the breadwinning department, but fortunately for the family, Fanny herself was energetic and enterprising. She took one of her sons (not Anthony) and an artistic young man to the United States. She was planning to join a friend of hers who was a mover in setting up the utopian community in Harmony, Indiana, but the place turned out to be squalid, and she didn't stay long.

Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.

While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.

After Mrs. Trollope returned to England, she supported her family by writing novels that were quite popular at the time, though they haven't become the classics her son's have. She spent her final years living in Italy with another son and his wife.

This is an extremely entertaining commentary on American manners and well written. I agree, however, with Mrs. Trollope's son, Anthony, who commented that Mrs. Trollope is a keen observer but she understands little. Certainly her complaints about the lack of gentility among Americans is valid but she completely missed the wonderful lack of class restraints endemic to English society which afforded Americans "class mobility"--freedom of opportunity (except for native Americans and slaves).

Fanny Trollope (1779-1863) wrote over 35 novels and several non-fictions books in her effort to rescue her family from poverty. However, the most read of all her books is "Domestic Manners of the Americans" which she published in 1832. It was in that distant year that Fanny and two of her children traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. Her purpose was to join a utopian community in Tennessee whose denizens were freed slaves.
Fanny left her impecunious and feckless husband the barrister Thomas Trollope back home in England. Her famous son Anthony did not make the trip as he was a student at Harrow School. Fanny knew her husband would join her in the USA when money became available. Later the family would flee to Bruges to escape creditors. Fanny eventually lived out her life in Florence near her son Thomas Trollope.
After leaving Tennessee the Trollopes settled for two years in the Queen City of the West Cincinnati, Ohio. Fanny did not like America or the American people! She found us xenephobic; boastful, prideful and violent.She hated the hypocrisy of life in Midwest Ohio although she did attend such cultural attractions as opera, plays and lectures. She favored the state Anglican Church of Great Britain not caring for America's separation between church and state.
This book could well be read alongside Charles Dickens' "American Notes for General Circulation" based on his 1842 six month trip to the USA.
Both Trollope and Dickens found the Americans crude, lacking in manners
and eager to make a quick buck. Listen to Trollope at her most scathing:
"..among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and in the free states...I do not like them. I do not like their principals, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions." (p.314).
Fanny Trollope's book is more interesting than Dickens since she discusses colorful characters and shares anecdotes about her sojourn in our young republic. Like Dickens she hates the odious practice of tobacco chewing and the mangling of the English language. Trollope found us Yankees to be too serious and viewing us as poorly read. Unlike the wealthy and famous Dickens, Mrs. Trollope was a middle-aged woman fighting off poverty with her pen. I enjoyed her descriptions of nature such as those she paints of the Potomac River, Northern Virginia and the Niagra Falls area in New York and Canada. She is aware of flora and fauna and describes them with knowledge and in beautiful prose.
Dickens and Trollope give us the eye to see America in the days prior to the Civil War when the curse of chattel slavery ruled the land. Since those days America has granted freedom to all citizens. I wish both Fanny and Charles could visit us again in the 21st century. Their remarks would be of great interest to this reviewer and countless others!

All I can say is: what a great read! Who knew? Quite frankly, upon first sight of this book I must admit a bit of dread as the puritanical artwork does not smack of fun and games. Of course, as a literature student, I should know better than to ever judge a book by its cover.
Had I been Fanny Trollope writing such an account of America in the 1820s, I would be hardpressed to say that I would have changed a single word. Trollope has been the victim of many mean spirited caricatures and accusations by Americans and it still continues today, but what is interesting is that no one can do more than attack her person. In other words, no one seems to be able to refute her claims.
Trollope's "bitchiness" seems, for the most part, merited by my standards and while she finds much to complain about concerning an American democracy in its adolescence, she certainly discovers just as many things that she likes or finds beautiful.
Plain and simple, Americans collectively have a hard time taking criticism, especially from an outsider...and at that time, political criticism from a woman was deemed absurd if not audacious.
Last but not least, Fanny Trollope is always sure to preface anything she says with the conscious realization that she can only speak for what she has seen/heard personally and is thereby not judging ALL of America.
Trollope is witty and anecdotal and I think anyone interested in what an outspoken Englishwoman had to say about the New World should certainly pick up a copy. I found particular interest in gender/religious issues but got the most laughs out of her descriptions of American manners (or the lack thereof).
It is always interesting to see how much things have changed, and better yet, how many things have remained exactly the same!

Very entertaining read of the author's trip through 19th Century America, full of wonderful description and enlightening observations. Despite the griping below, Mrs Trollope simply reports what she sees - men spitting tobacco on the floor, ladies off in another room while the guys have a good time, etc. She reports accurately on our forefathers' rugged pioneer spirit, but points out the lack of education everywhere. We want to shout "lies!" but Mark Twain wrote about the same thing, and the aspects of our society that haven't changed much are still being commented on with the same frankness by writers like Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, Dawn Powell, Paul Theroux and Joan Didion. Many true-hearted Americans will enjoy this book no end. Mrs Trollope clearly loved America and simply wrote truthfully about; she is simply beholden to no one - the essence of good writing. A thoroughly refreshing read.

This is one of the most fun books of history you will ever be lucky enough to read. It covers some aspects of 17th Century French history, with the greatest proportion of the book centered on Louis XIV and his court, although there are chapters on the peasantry and the brutality of the galleys.

I personally enjoyed the essays on court etiquette because it was so ludicrous. Louis convinced the nobility of France to give up their private armies to live in tiny attic bedrooms at Versailles and fight over who got to sit in an armchair and who had to sit on a stool. Human nature never changes--in the 21st century people fight to achieve status by buying the correct Manolo Blahnik shoes and the right Hermes carry all.

The chapter on female education alone is worth the price of admission. Louis and Mme. de Maintenon established a school for the daughters of impoverished aristocrats, and as a result reformed education for upper class females throughout France.

As other reviewers have said, this is history in the grand manner and most enjoyable.

The wealth of detail in W.H. Lewis' book The Splendid Century is incredible, but even more incredible is Lewis' ability to see the forest and the trees, to intelligently distinguish between what is useful and what is irrelevant and to leave the reader with a definite impression of Louis XIV's France.

Like his brother, C.S., Warren Lewis has that stereotyped but still very real and precious commodity of English commonsense. His good-humored rationality flavors the book but not to the detriment of the subject. Lewis was, afterall, writing about Louis XIV's France, not 20th century England. As with all the best historians, Lewis has the ability to see the world from outside the ideologies and pressures of the present. More than once, he cautions the reader against applying current century thinking to a 17th century problem or event.

But tone is where Lewis excels. Personable without being chatty, humorous without being sarcastic, A Splendid Century is amazingly relaxing to read, especially allowing for the subject matter and Lewis' fact-filled prose.

Recommendation: Buy it.

So much of what you read about the France of Louis 14th is based on the memoirs of Courtiers, to whom Versailles was the centre of the universe. In many ways that was true. Louis built Versilles to be the new heart of France. One where *he* ruled absoultley to the glorie of France.

However, this book covers much more than Versilles. You get to see what the majority of France was like during the period outside the court. Why the country was loathed by all courtiers, the real definition of a stinking Paris. How to get caught out at dinner for wrong ettiqute. Why you *didn't* want to end up on the Galleys and what your chances of education would have been like.

The author makes it clear that it is hard to make generalisations about this period in France, but he does his best to give us examples of the confusion and differences people experienced during the period.

If you think our taxes are bad today. Read this book and thank your lucky stars you aren't living in 17th cent France.

All in all this is a very enlightening read and highly recommended to anybody who wants a real glimpse of what the *real* France was like under Louis 14th.

W.H. Lewis wrote this famous book (dedicated to his brother C.S.) in 1953, but it has stood the test of time very well and provides an excellent introduction to the history of France during the reign of Louis XIV. "The Splendid Century" is history in the grand manner, written in the style of Trevelyan, Runciman and Roy Porter. The erudition is everywhere apparent, but it is worn lightly and the story is told in fluent prose enlivened by the odd flash of sly humour.

As the author points out in the introduction, the book might have been better titled "Some Aspects of Life in the Reign of Louis XIV;" rather than present a sequential narrative, Lewis chose to structure the book as a series of essays on particular aspects. There are chapters on the king and his court, the religious situation, the organisation of the army and the state of the peasantry. Among the unexpected pleasures of the book are the chapters on sea voyages, the world of the galleys and the education of women. A surprising omission, however, is a discussion of Colbert and his attempts at administrative reform. Nevertheless, this is a fine work of history that can be strongly recommended.

Mr.W.H.Lewis, brother of Mr.C.S., projects his fondness for the 17th century with bravado in The Splendid Century. The word splendid, derived from the latin for "illuminated", allows the reader to understand his thesis of the Grand Siecle without turning a page, by simply judging the book by its cover. Here is a profoundly pious Christian man composing some of the most glorious prose about a controvertial subject and succeeding where so many others have failed.

By not limiting himself to Versailles Mr.Lewis creates honesty. But he does not stop there, he remains true to the popular understanding. The Sun King's world brought to life.

Top notch telling of the adventures of Father Duffy and the Fighting 69th. Maqnificent battle sequences as well as historical background.Fine piece of work...R.D.Morgan..author of "The Tri-State Terror" and "Taming the Sooner State".

My husband has this book in hardcover and liked it so much that he bought the soft covered version for an older gentleman he knows from the Catholic War Veterans: Father Duffy Post in Manhattan, NY. It is a well written and informative story that does great justice to the bravery and courage of this Catholic Chaplain and others from the Fighting 69th. It also tells the story of the immigrants of NYC as they fought and died together during this first World War.

This is a very good book and thoroughly researched about the Fighting 69th Regiment New York US Infantry. It provides a very detailed account of the Regiment's actions in the Great War of 1914-1918, although the United States did not declare war on Germany until early 1917. The Regiment was transported to France towards the end of 1917 and went into the trenches in February 1918. The book describes the various actions in which the Regiment fought and the doughboys suffered very heavy casualties in its advance to the Hindenberg Line. The book was based upon the writings from his diary of the regimental chaplain Father Francis P Duffy, who also wrote a book in 1919 about the Regiment, a copy of which has recently been received from Amazon and will be my next read.

I've read a lot about the American Expeditionary Force and the Fighting 69th, but Stephen Harris's study really expanded my knowledge about both. I'll certainly have a much better appreciation of Joyce Kilmer's "Rouge Bouquet" next time I hear it read and of the goings on at the River Ourcq next time I visit that battlefield. What I really enjoyed, however, was the author's biographical sketches and background on a whole raft of fascinating individuals. These include average Joes caught up in the adventure of lifetime, Medal of Honor recipients, plus well-known characters like Kilmer, Wild Bill Donovan and--most importantly--the namesake of the book, Father Francis Duffy. The good father turns out to be amazingly multi-dimensional: a good Samaritan to Teddy Roosevelt's returning malaria-afflicted Rough Riders, a learned modernist intellectual who works his way into his bishop's doghouse, a military politician of the first order, the proud protector of his Irish and unofficially Irish flock, and New York City's most beloved humanitarian. A strong recommendation for Duffy's War.

The 69th regiment, is one of the oldest and most famous units in the United States Army. It's history goes back to 1851 when it was known as the 69th New York Militia. ('A' company can trace its roots further back to the Revolutionary War.) The unit gained fame at numerous Civil War battlefields and Gen. Lee gave it the name 'The Fighting 69th.'

This book takes the regiment into the next war, World War I, where its actions were no less heroic. It spent 170 days in the front lines suffering hundreds killed and thousands wounded. Perhaps its most famous members were Father Francis Duffy (whose statue is in Times Square, which technically is really Duffy Square), Wild Bill Donovan who headed the OSS in World War II, and the poet Joyce Kilmer ('Trees') who was killed. The regiment was part of the 42nd Rainbow Division under Douglas MacArthur.

This is the full, previously unpublished story of the regiments actions in World War I and fills out a trilogy of stories concentrating on individual regiments by the same author.

The 69th still exists. It was one of the first military responders at 9/11 - having two men killed there, and it was federalized and sent to Iraq in 2004.

very useful reference book for inspirational creativity.

There was nothing written on this true master of Art Deco metalware, and this book is as comprehensive as a book can be on an artist. Written with respect, admiration and love for the Art Deco style and the metal craft. Cannot be surpassed. Nothing missing, nothing redundant.

I am a practicing metalsmith of 35 years. This much needed book covers it's subject from every perspective. It will become a valuable asset to historians, collectors and craftsmen. My only critique is that Joan did not include a picture of Brandt's stamp and other ways of varifying his work from fraud.

The author has produced a comprehensive work covering this great Art Deco artist and the exciting era in which he flourished. Joan Kahr's tremendous depth of knowledge and understanding comes through on every page of this beautiful book.

This book is a "must have" for any fan of French art deco/art moderne style. It is beautifully researched and written. The wonderful photography only made me long for more.

Ed Ruggero has written an absolutely fantastic history of some of the most significant airborne operations surrounding the Normandy invasion. To nit-pick the selection of the book title or a minute detail of 82nd Medal of Honor history from World War I doesn't do justice to the otherwise meticulous research and master story-telling of this inspiring author. This well-written prose is fast-paced and as readable as any historical fiction. Ruggero is superb in his description of small unit airborne operations in World War II. In my opinion, much better than the previous standard set by MacDonald's World War II memoir COMPANY COMMANDER. And just as good as Vietnam small unit memoirs - McDonough's PLATOON LEADER and Moore and Galloway's WE WERE SOLDIERS.

I have a friend who was in the 82nd Airborne's A Company and was a Pathfinder. He was 19 years old. I bought it for him and read it first. I have seen all the movies and heard all stories about Normandy but to read this book made me realize just how really terrible the battle for the bridge was. I had no idea just what they faced. I had visited the site and still had no real understanding of the battle until I read this book. I have even more respect for Max than I did before. What a tale. Bob Morriss

This is an excellent and easy reading book; however, I would recommend that the reader be apprised of D-Day history before reading it. It gives a wonderful insight to one more important advance into Normandy!

I read this hoping to learn about the history of the paratroopers on D-Day and got more than I expected. It gives the history of D-Day, but it tells it in such an exciting, storytelling fashion that it gives you a first person feeling for how terrible those days were. The sacrifices our troops made in WWII were incredible. Let's never forget them.

"I don't know a better place than this to die." When Lt. John "Red dog" Dolan scratched out this single line to a hard pressed squad leader at the La Fiere bridge, he simultaneously scribed his name into the short roll call of those Americans who have placed the love of their country and the freedom of its people ahead of their very own next breath.

I have read the account of Lt. Dolan at the little bridge over the Merderet in three other books of paratrooper history and none of them carry the weight and measure of Ed Ruggero's version in The First Men In. It is nearly impossible to read through chapter 12 and not find yourself gazing off into the ether, overcome by the willingness of these young men of the Greatest Generation to sacrifice themselves for less-great generations yet unborn.

While The First Men In is not a small unit combat history such as Band of Brothers, it follows several men - G.I. and officers - from their enlistment through their training, their midnight jump into the Cotentin and through the first days of the Battle of Normandy, delivering the intimate kinship with the characters that the reader so desires as well as the great sweep and desperate fear of near hopeless combat.

The First Men In is a book you will read more than once. In the way you might take a second look at a sunset, the heroism of the men in the pages compels you to turn and look over your shoulder again and again until the very last light fades, leaving you asking yourself at the last glint of purple if such a marvelous thing was really possible in the first place.

If you want to know why General Bradley would not land troops on Utah beach without these men, if you want to know why these men are correctly titled America's Guard of Honor, if you want to know why the local French have re-named the bridge at Chef du Pont the Pont du Capitaine Roy Creek, if you want to once again be warmed and comforted by the greatness of your country, read The First Men In.

I love this book! Great recipes and information about the country. Glossary is extremely useful.

Instead of purchasing this book here, I recommend looking for it in stores like Waldenbooks or Barnes and Noble in their section of books on sale. These stores always have a section of huge books that have been marked down to very reasonable prices.

This book isn't particularly huge, but it is legitimate in its recipes. I have tried several recipes from this book and they've all come out wonderful and comparable to the "real deals" that I've tasted over in France myself. There was no need to alter any of the ingredients or amounts, as so far I've had no failures/disasters in cooking from this book. It is divided up into sections (poultry, fish, desserts, etc.) and each section opens first to an introduction to a region of France with a little bit of background. The book provides pictures for almost every recipe they list, which I know can be helpful to some readers/cooks to know what it is they're cooking.

I would say, though, that some of the recipes might require you to be a little adventurous, as of course these authentic recipes require foods that Americans do not normally eat very often (like lamb and rabbit, for example). But I've found that other than that, the ingredients were not so exotic that I couldn't find them in the store and was forced to make adjustments.

This book is really packed and pretty. The pictures are great, but I think it could have included more desserts.

I got this book on a closeout at my local bookstore, and at that low price the book is wonderful. I'd be a little less thrilled if I paid full-price... but only a little.

I would guess that most "...The Beautiful" books are probably purchased for their coffee table appeal. This is a large format book (12"x18"), with stunning photos of different areas of France and of the food (there's generally one picture of the finished dish for every two recipes). If you want a book to inspire you to travel to France or to go out to eat at a French restaurant, or if you are searching for an impressive and pretty gift, this is a no-brainer. It's gorgeous.

The recipes are very good, too, but I'm tempted to say that they're almost beside the point. There are 240 recipes, divided in menu-like sections (first courses, fish and shellfish, poultry and game, etc.) rather than regionaly. Each recipe is marked with the region it comes from, so you know that the mussels in cream is from Normandy and the veal rolls (paupiettes) are from Provence. There's also a couple of pages, with photos, describing each region. Nicely done.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about French cooking to speak to the authenticity of the recipes, but none of them were jarring. Most of the dishes are kept on the simple side (I get the feeling that the "real" version might require a few more hours in the kitchen), and they do have interesting, if short, introductions. The intro for cassoulet, for instance, gives a little history of this well-known dish, and mentions regional variations ("Toulouse adds Toulouse sausage, leg of lamb and confit"). You'll find the usual suspects of French cuisine; 240 dishes is a bunch, but far from exhaustive.

Most of the recipes are, as I said, very good. Their recipe for sole meuniere matches the one I use, and I have my eye on their recipe for beef braised with Calvados.

However, the book does show that it was written in 1989, when it was difficult to find some "exotic" ingredients. The recipe for chaoucroute (saurkraut with pork and sausage) calls for, among other things, a smoked kielbasa, and 6 Strasbourg sausages or frankfurters. David Rosengarten's _Taste_ has a whole chapter devoted to charcoute (which led me to spend my sole evening in Paris at a restaurant for which it's the specialty -- maybe I'll send him the bill), and it's obvious that these are gringo subsitutions. Kielbasa, maybe; frankfurters, no way. (Oddly, though, they don't shy away from dishes made with venison or rabbit, which I find much harder to find.)

As someone else mentioned, the desserts chapter feels short; there's about 20 recipes here, and I think most of us would assume that the French pastry section would be far larger.

Overall, this is a fine book -- particularly for inspiration purposes. If you can get it at a good price, grab it.

This is easily the greatest French cookbook I've ever seen and one of the best cookbooks overall. I've been to France many times and the same food is in this cookbook as is in France. The recipes are easy to understand, the food is great, and the photographs just make you more and more hungry. I am a 16 year old boy who has a hard time cooking and filling myself, but this cookbook remedies both of these problems. The meals are simple, yet elegant, not to mention delicious, filling, and scrumptious. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys cooking and would like cooking to become a passion.

very good general book on france but france is so big that some more special items like the provence should added from the same compagny

Some guidebooks are factual but then who looks at them again later? These Eyewitness Travel Guides are gorgeous--the graphics are unsurpassed, from the marvelously legible maps to the tantalizing photos to the great cut-away drawings of famous places.

We used this one for Paris and Versailles and for an excursion into the Dijon area--it was just what we needed. About the first quarter of the book is Paris and while we did look on line at some places beforehand, this was our basic guide. We found the pages on Notre Dame, the Ste Chapelle etc to be excellent.

And it is great to look at now that we are home and remember... Ah!

I've been a fan of DK for years. It's just now that, in searching for travel books, I found this DK Eyewitness Travel Guide series. This is a great book! All the high-quality pictures, illustrations, diagrams you expect out of DK - and the whole of France in clear, easy-to-comprehend chunks.

We haven't traveled to France, but this book has definitely helped me get my thinking cap on ....

This makes a good companion book to a book like Rick Steve's France. The pictures are good and give some ideas at what to see before you go. As far as the other aspects of planning a trip it is useless. It is a good picture book and no more.

Great book to read before the trip. It gets your juices flowing. Will even enjoy it after the trip. Too heavy to carry along if you are doing the one bag back pack thing.

The chosen stories are excellent--all of top quality, both from a literary and (often) from a philosophical perspective. It is very easy to use the fine translation side-by-side with the original French.

This is classic literature, a very good book. I'd be interested in a modern works like this as well. Seems like I saw one out there somewhere....

This book includes some great authors - the ones you should at least know about if you are going to learn the French language and appreciate French culture. I have always loved the idea of having the English translation on the opposite page. I think it makes learning structures easier. You see how we would write something in English, and then you see how the structure differs in the French version.

I bought this book for my ailing and flailing French vocabulary. Although I speak fluently, my diminishing vocabulary is directly accredited to my non-use and non-practice of the language. One note - many phrases are translated literally, yet lack the tonality and subtle nuances which are found in true meaning. Otherwise, a very easy read and a useful book for those of us who lack opportunity to speak the language. Would certainly recommend this book for an intermediate level and up.

First the good. These stories are worth reading anyway, even if not trying to improve your French. Can't believe I never read Micromegas before! Can't believe it was written mid 1700s! So the selection of stories is an excellent one and the practice and vocabulary building comes quickly. For that reason, I'd unquestionably buy this again.

The bad. I know enough French to know that the translations are atrocious. Though I am not fluent in French, I believe I could have done a better, truer translation (with help of a French dictionary). Beautiful phrases are translated into mundane English cliches and some unknown French words are, on some occasions, "translated" into the identical (and equally unknown) word on the English side. Did the translater not have access to an English dictionary or did he not know what the French word really meant?

So -- definitely a useful buy for learning and practicing French and (particularly if you can read most of it in French) interesting stories as well. Just try not to refer to the English counterpart more than you must, such as for the periodic word translation.

Other reviewers have told the story of this memoir: a young American water-colorist goes to France in the 1960s to study and falls in love with a handsome, caring and gifted French painter whom she marries and with whom she has a child. They move to a remote Breton village and as the husband's behavior grows more erratic, suppressive and then violent from mental illness, his young wife finds stability and a deep friendship with an old Breton peasant woman who has seldom been more than a few miles from her village, cannot read or write, and would not speak on a telephone if she had one. The friendship grows to a rare and unexpected love.

The author's tribute to her peasant friend whose support gave her the strength to go on with her life and work is absolutely beautiful. It gives me great faith in what life can be. I number this among my most treasured books and will soon be reading it again.

I am the author of MARRYING MOZART and several other novels.

This is one of those books you just don't want to put down, and my only complaint is that it isn't longer!! Price is a skilled writer who can describe a scene as carefully as I think she could sketch it (she is an artist by profession). I'll try to constrain my remarks to my impression of her book because I don't want to give away the twists and turns in the story. As mentioned in the publishers review, this is the story of a woman in the 60's who marries and has a house in rural France, her marriage falling apart at the same time her bond with a country woman who on paper she has nothing in common with grows. Her descriptions are so vivid you think you were an eyewitness, which is doubly fortunate because she is present at the close of an era. As she remarks, when she first moved there many people were living not that much different than people did in the Middle Ages, but electricity and the modern conveniences changed all that. As mentioned, a lot of the story centers around her friendship with a neighbor who lived her whole life within perhaps a 3-mile circle of the village. This is a double-edged sword. While her elderly friend is a bridge to a past that is fast disappearing in the 60's, I think the author still harbors some guilt about not being present for her friend at the end. But as the subtitle says, a memoir of love and loss. To sum up, Price is a gifted writer and I hope she is penning another book as we speak!

One of those rare books that you cannot put down, knowing as you are reading it that you will be sorry when the book ends. I don't normally keep many books after I am finished reading them, but this one is a keeper. A beautiful story of a woman discovering herself and also that of her friendship with someone you would think she had nothing in common with.

This is a profound and touching memoir of the joys, sorrows and personal growth of a young America artist. Marjorie Price's life is changed in ways she could never have anticipated when she leaves Chicago for Paris in the 1960's to enhance her art and to experience all things French. She marries a French artist, and together they buy a centuries-old farm in a tiny hamlet in Brittany. As her marriage unravels, Price and her young daughter become more comfortable with their new neighbors and their rural, unmechanized way of life. A central theme, and for me the most touching one, is the way Price forges an affecting relationship with a remarkable older woman who has lived all her life in the hamlet.

Events and dialogue are recreated in a flowing dramatic narrative, laced with elements of sadness and humor. Every scene, every venue, is real and present, drawing the reader in as if witness to a staged play. Always the artist, Price perceives her natural surroundings in their ever-changing light and array of colors and forms, and paints it all with words as effective as brush strokes.

"This is a wonderful story of the coming together of cultures and generations. A woman artist finds herself in a foreign land; in spite of facing loneliness and hardship, she finds love right where she is in the friendship with an elderly village woman, and the friendship changes the foreigner's life. She learns new tricks to survive in the ancient French village and earns the respect of the villagers as she adjusts to her new life. It is a compelling story and you feel it really comes from the heart."

Fred Andresen, Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia.