Almost French - Book Review

Almost French
by Sarah Turnbull
Nicholas Brealey Publishing 2003.

Last summer I read a book about Paris written by an American. It was called C'est La Vie by Susie Gershman. Someone wrote a comment and mentioned another book called Almost French. Well its taken me a year to finally find my own copy. I have now read Almost French and I thoroughly enjoyed it.


When is an elevator not an elevator?
When it is a lift.
Nine years ago, I was perfectly comfortable calling a lift a lift. That is after all what they are. But no. Here in Canada they are not lifts. They are of course - elevators.

Sarah Turnbull is an Australian. (Immigration note - Actually Sarah was born in USA of Australian parents, but does not use her American citizenship. Technically she is required by American law to be paying portion of all her taxes to the USA for the rest of her life - no matter where in the world she lives and no matter what other citizenship she uses).

As an Australian, Sarah uses British (or Aussie) English, just like New Zealand does - NZ being my country of origin. A lift is a lift is a lift.

Now that I have been in Canada for eight years, I always use the elevator. I never use the lift. So every time I read the word lift in this book, it jarred my reading. I had to slow down and translate what a lift was. And the lift was mentioned frequently because Sarah and her boyfriend (now husband) live on the top floor of a 6 storey apartment and there is NO lift. Er - I mean no elevator!!!

The only other problem I had was that Sarah made no mention of any immigration details. One cannot just go visit France (or any country really) for a week and just decide to stay for the rest of their life, which is what she did. There is a LOT of paperwork involved in being allowed to stay. There was no mention of paperwork at all. Except right at the end for their wedding.

Other than that, this was a very readable book. Finally someone who tells it like it really is in France. The French are very fussy about clothes, about dining out, about dinner parties and about foreigners trying to pretend they are French.

As much as I love french culture, I dont think I want to live in Paris, Susie Gershman never mentioned these details. She mostly mentioned the paperwork required to do buy a house, to do home improvements (which Sarah also mentions) and to do this, that and the other. The French love their bureacracy.

I am happy that I married a French-Canadian man instead. That way I get the French language all around me, but none of the culture. And the paperwork. Oh the paperwork. We went through FIVE years of government paperwork as I applied to be a permanent resident of Canada.

Thankfully that is all finally behind me, and I can legally APPLY to become a citizen of Canada at the end of this year - just 4 months away. But I wont be doing that because I cannot afford the $200 necessary to file the paperwork. Not while I am at school.

An update on Sarah from online says that she and her husband moved back to France in 2007 after 3 years away. They still do not have children. Just the dog, Maddie.

I read this book for the (Memoirs) In Their Shoes Challenge.

C'est la Vie -by Suzy Gershman Book Review

C'est La Vie
By Suzy Gershman
Penguin 2004 Website - Suzy Gershman

I have always loved Paris and the French culture, the language, the history - ever since I was a little girl. I will read (almost) ANYTHING about France, so this book was an automatic purchase. I saved it for a later time, and the Armchair Challenge was the perfect time to read it. Today was the perfect day to read it.
I took my son to the local splash pool where he spent 6 hours splashing in the water with his friends, shooting water from water guns, blowing bubbles and generally having a good time. I spent most of that time sitting in the shade reading this book.


I enjoyed it. I really did. I just had one small concern. Did she really need to tell us about her sex life with a 70 something old man? I should have paid more attention to the quote at the bottom of the cover. Anyone who wonders about sex with a Frenchman will love this inspiring story of starting life over in Paris.

I have no idea who Suzy Gershman is, I have never seen or read any of her books. Apparently she writes the Born to Shop series of books for Frommers. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer in late 1999 and died in the first week of January 2000. Within 6 weeks, Suzy was packed and moving to Paris.

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories Suzy told of a foreigner trying to rent an apartment, of figuring out the metro and bus services, of learning where the good shops were. Yes, she complained frequently about the high cost of living, but Paris has always been known as an expensive city. And since she obviously had money, and an apartment, and was still writing her books, Suzy was never in any danger of being made homeless.

But when she started dating the Count (Count of Monte Cristo she called him, because she didnt want to give his real title) I thought she was mad. For three reasons. One because her husband had died only 6 months before and wasn't she rushing things a bit too much, secondly she was only 52 and the Count was almost 80, and thirdly, did she really have to regale us with the details of her sex life? It was rather TMI in my opinion. When the relationship broke up, I thought Serves you right for being dazzled by a title.

I got the impression that maybe Suzy was embarrassed, and that was the real reason she refused to identify him. She could easily have chosen to not mention the Count at all. I think she got some very bad editing advice. Add some sex to spice it up a little. Make it exciting so you will sell more copies. Bad advice. But only about her relationship with the Count. The rest of the book I really did enjoy. Now if she had just mentioned meeting Emeril Lagasse, and I might easily have skimmed the parts about the Count.

Time Was Soft There - Book Review

Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer
(UK - Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs)



I read this book in one day - today. Being a Saturday - I seldom get time to do much reading, let alone an entire book. But this book is about 2 things I love - Books and Paris!! And to make things even better - the Author is a Canadian!!!





"Hard time goes slowly and painfully and leaves a man bitter.... Time at Shakespeare and Company was as soft as anything I'd ever felt."

When I first spotted this book on the shelves, I was attracted to the books on the cover. Any books about books will catch my interest. I read the blurb and the back cover, and thought Shakespeare & co bookshop in Paris. I remember reading about that shop, but I thought that was old, back before the war. So I figured this a biography of the shop when all the famous authors were there, before the war. I believe I read that the Montmartre district (arrondisement?) was called "Bohemian Paris".

Well it turns out I was only partly right. I was right about the Bookshop before the war and the famous authors and the Bohemian era. What I had not known was the bookshop had been started up again (by George Whitman) during the sixties, and was still going strong in the new millenium.

I loved the descriptions of Paris. The out-of-the-way places that most people dont get to see. I was somewhat disconcerted to read about the run-down state of the building - inside and outside. I was horrified to read about George's lack of security, his blase attitude to money, and the numerous thefts.

George Whitman (the owner) definitely did not have a head for business. Despite being a communist as he claimed, I think he wore his heart on his sleeve, and allowed everyone to walk all over him. While reading the early part of the book, I was thinking, I must go visit this bookshop, if I ever get to Paris. About two thirds of the way through, I was thinking, if its still that run down and non-secured, I think I will stay away. But in the last chapter, I was cheered to read about the improvements to the shop, after George's daughter Sylvie took over as Manager.

The problem is that George wanted to live in a socialist and utopian society. Where money means nothing and everyone helps everyone else. The real world just does not work that way. I don't much like the real world either. I often wish I was born 100 years earlier so that I could grow up in the late 1800's and early 1900s, and see the beginnings of the technological & industrial society that now consumes us.

Even if I have never been Paris, maybe I already do know what a bookshop like Shakespeare & Co feels like. I used to spend hours in a similar shop near my home back in New Zealand. It's called The Hard to Find, but Worth the Effort second hand book shop. They have 10 rooms in what used to be a 3-storey house, all jam-packed with books. And while the owners do not allow people to sleep there, it does have a bathroom.

Anyway, this book was more about the people, and not the books. I was disappointed that there was not more mentions of Book titles. I would have loved more details on the rare books being sold in the "antiquarian room".

But that's just me. I am more of a Books person, and less of a People person.

So, here are 3 more reviews on this book, plus Jeremy's own website.

Review 1

Review 2

Jeremy Mercer

Review 3

PS To those who still dont know what the title refers to - "Soft time" refers to time spent in medium and & minimum security jails. Where inmates often have access to TV, books, computers, the internet and sometimes even distance education. Hard time is usually time spent in maximum security jails.