For anyone thinking of moving to France, or who has just moved to the Hexagon and is trying to make new friends, this book is very helpful. Julie Barlow says that the main barrier to making new French friends is not the language but the cultural undercurrents. Smiling and being polite will get you so far, but French people find confrontation more interesting than consensus, she says, and being interesting is the main aim of social conversation.
It is also helpful to know that taboo subjects include asking someone’s name and/or occupation, along with talking about money. Religion and politics are absolutely fair game, how ever, and arguing in defence of your point of view is not necessarily seen as rude. You just have to be interesting about it.
Authors Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau have spent decades living between France and Canada, and yet their observations are fresh and clear. This book follows up from Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong (2024) but with a much lighter touch, perhaps because they had become parents by the time they wrote The Bonjour Effect, and had therefore integrated into France more thoroughly.
The book is written so fluently it is like listening to a close friend talking, and the subject is fascinating. Even the topic of when to say bonjour (absolutely always) and to whom (absolutely everybody) is well explained. For newbies to France, this book is essential reading, and for old hands it will amuse whilst still giving pause for thought.
The Perfect Nanny
The Perfect Nanny
Leila Slimani, translation by Sam Taylor,
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Wheeler Publishing, €10.27;
ISBN: 978-1432847883
There are many novels titled The Perfect Nanny, but this one is set in Paris. Be warned, two children are found murdered on the first page and the tale only gets more gripping as the plot unfolds. The wealthy parents have hired a woman they think is the perfect nanny, but their relationship with her is far from straightforward. As she goes the extra mile to keep their lives on track, resentments mount on both sides.
Rather than delivering a straightforward whodunit, Leila Slimani explores themes including class, sexism, motherhood and moral goodness as she unpicks the motives for the double murder. When this prize-winning novel was published in France, it sold 600,000 copies in the first year.
Moroccan author Slimani was educated in French, studied in Paris, and her knowledge of life in bourgeois Paris is evident in her writing. Sam Taylor’s sensitive translation keeps the elegant writing style as well as the sense of urgency, making this a page-turner.
Far from the fanciful Emily in Paris fantasy, Slimani’s Paris is realistic; her characters are stressed, busy, preoccupied with money, careers, and social lives. It probably would not appeal to a reader looking for an escapist ramble around the imaginary little cake-shops at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. But if your taste runs to spine-chilling psychological horror with a dose of moral reckoning for good measure, this could be just the book for you.
Love in Provence is easy reading at its best. You know right from the start that everything will turn out well. Our heroine Del loves her life in Provence where she is growing lavender and conducting an affair with the charming Fabien. But one of the lavender pickers is trouble, and Fabien isn’t on hand to help her sort him out. Will they complete the harvest in time?
Readers will love the heart-warming descriptions of the French countryside, drenched in sunshine and romance. The mouth watering foodie scenes will have you wandering around your own kitchen hunting for olive oil, and wishing you could crunch into the end of a baguette.
This is a sequel to her hugely popular novel Escape to the French Farmhouse, and fans will love it. If you haven’t discovered Jo Thomas before, you have a treat in store. Although reading the books in order makes sense, Love in Provence has enough backstory to work as a stand-alone novel.
As for the plot, we all know that the harvest will be safely gathered in, and Fabien will reappear just in time to live happily ever after.
