Today’s TTT is books from new-to-us authors we’d like to read, but given that today is Bastille Day, I’m going to salute la belle France instead! There was a period (2012 – 2013) in which I was besotted with France, so much that I even ordered a book on learning French. (French: How to Speak it and How to Write It. Dover.) The mood eventually left me,but I remember the period fondly. Today, I’m going to do a mix: first, some books from that period, along with pieces of French music that bring back the old feeling. (Someone, Wordsandpeace I think, requested that I share some of my favorite French music on July 1. I did mean to.) All the French is from Google translate. Mais d’abord….

Teaser Tuesday

The people who insist that aesthetics don’t matter, that trucking is strictly business, and a truck is just a tool to get work done as cheaply as possible, are missing or ignoring the fact that in virtually any other trade we could all be making more money in fewer hours without spending weeks away from home. Clearly there is something about trucking—incomprehensible to the spreadsheet brain of your average accountant—that draws us to it, but we don’t agree on what exactly that means or what we’re willing to compromise to be here. – Gord McGill, END OF THE ROAD: INSIDE THE WAR ON TRUCKERS

Top 10 du mardi

(1) A Life of her Own, Emile Carles. I really owe this one a re-read, because it’s fascinating in itself — the memoir of a schoolteacher in the early 1900s who taught her village schoolchildren to think freely and question the state and their culture — but it played an important role in my own political biography. Carles’ leftism was anti-authoritarian, allowing me to begin reading anarchists like Emma Goldman and then find myself surprised to be in the company of right-libertarians.(One of these days I’m going to do a paper on Emma Goldman and Ayn Rand — both Russian emigres, both individualists, with very different worldviews.)

‘Beware of politicians, beware of silver-tongued orators, do your utmost to judge for yourself, and above all, take advantage of the beauty life offers.”

(2) Citizens: A History of the French Revolution, Simon Schama. A comprehensive and eye-opening book. One comment from my notes that leaps out: at one point the revolutionaries were so intoxicated with fighting the king that even when he was trying to fix things in a way they’d like, they obstructed him anyway.

Et maintenant, un peu de musique….

(3) “Mon Oncle” soundtrack. I adore Jacques Tati’s movies, at least those with M. Hulot. The soundtrack is a happy place in its own right. I listen to it several times a week. (It’s only 30 minutes — don’t be too impressed.) I can almost imagine Wodehouse writing Bertie Wooster to this music…

(4) Avalon Jazz Band. Man alive, I love listening to Tatiana Eva-Marie and the Avalon Jazz Band.

Un retour aux livres…

La Belle France: A Short History, Alistair Horne. A lovely narrative history of France.

French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. When I read this, I had just changed my diet from the ‘normal American diet’ to one that ruled out processed foods. I was doing this to minimize salt; I wound up losing, almost inexplicably, well over a hundred pounds. I read a lot on food and food culture in 2012 as a result, in large part because I was trying to figure out What Am I Doing Right and How Can I Do More Of It?

Bringing up Bebe: One Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. In my twenties I was starting to think about the possibility of children and fatherhood, and thus reading books like this and Unschooling: increasingly, this book was part of a course in French culture, which I was loving. I recently tried to explain to someone why I enjoy Japanese literature so much — it’s because it makes me aware of a coherent culture, one with rules that are learnable and are generally intended to make life more humane and meaningful. My French kick at this time was communicating something very similar.

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong. A general review of why ‘we’ like France but not the French. I suspect I would argue with this book a lot more now from economic terms — I didn’t read Hayek until the very end of December 2012 — but it captures my mood from this year.

Et maintenant, encore de la musique !

“La vie en Rose”, Edith Piaf. I found this via Saving Private Ryan, I think, though I got really into 1930s – 1950s pre-rock vocalists in the early-mid 2000s. Couldn’t very well forget to mention it here! I also enjoy Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong’s versions of it, which have a mix of English and French lyrics.

“I Will Wait for You”, Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Umbrellas is a romantic drama about a young couple who fall passionately in love, but then the man is called to serve France in war: they decide to consummate their relationship in case they are forever separated, which leads to a little croissant in the oven. Drama ensues as la fille must choose what to do. Unfortunately, the best version of this song from the movie — where they are singing together before the night that changes everything — has been removed from youtube. Oh! Everything in the film is sung. Everything.

This is technically ten books or titles, but there are two tracks I cannot not mention. The first is “Flower Duet“, performed by sopranos , Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa. I’ve shared it before in flower-related posts. The other is a mix I have been listening to for fifteen years on youtube: somehow it has survived copyright strikes and other vagaries of fate. I wake up, I make coffee, I put this on. When it goes off, I know it’s time to get showered for work.