France Memoir

Devastated by the unexpected end of her decades-long marriage, renowned spiritual teacher and intuitive guide Sonia Choquette undertook an equally unexpected move and relocated to Paris, the scene of many happy memories from her life as a student and young mother. Arriving in the aftermath of...

In this poignant, delicious memoir, American tax preparer and food writer Steve Hoffman tells the story of how he and his family move to the French countryside, where the locals upend everything he knows about food, wine, and learning how to belong. Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable...

"In Paris (or anywhere else, really) a table for one can be a most delightful place." --Alone Time, as seen in The New York Times A wise, passionate account of the pleasures of traveling solo In our increasingly frantic daily lives, many people are genuinely fearful of the prospect of solitude...

At the age of 17, Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was living in Nazi-occupied Paris, using forged documents to hide in plain sight. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and his ability to masterfully reproduce official documents with an artistic eye, he was recruited to join the Jewish underground. He soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, working tirelessly with his network to create papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women, and children from certain death.

Chief minister to King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu was the architect of a new France in the 17th century, and the force behind the nation's rise as a European power. Among the first statesmen to clearly understand the necessity of a balance of powers, he was one of the early realist politicians, practicing in the wake of Niccol Machiavelli. Truly larger than life, he has captured the imagination of generations, both through his own story and through his portrayal as a ruthless political mastermind in Alexandre Dumas's classic The Three Musketeers.

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life...

Here is the first full-length biography of a much maligned but astonishingly colourful Queen of England. In Newgate Street, in the city of London, stand the meagre ruins of Christ Church. On the same site once stood a royal mausoleum set to rival Westminster Abbey in the 14th century. Among the many crowned heads buried there was Isabella of France, Edward II's queen - one of the most notorious femme fatales in history. But how did she acquire her evil reputation? And is it justified?

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.

In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the church with the state. But while they were able to work together initially, formalizing an agreement in 1801, relations between them rapidly deteriorated. In 1809, Napoleon ordered the Pope's arrest. Ambrogio Caiani provides a pioneering account of the tempestuous relationship between the emperor and his most unyielding opponent.

This is the incredible true story of the greatest spy you’ve never heard of - as told to the author by the woman herself. At the outbreak of World War Two, Nancy Wake’s glamorous life in the South of France seemed far removed from the fighting. But when her husband was called up for military service, Nancy felt she had just as much of a duty to fight for freedom. By 1943, her fearless undercover work even in the face of personal tragedy had earned her a place on the Gestapo’s "most wanted" list.

La nuit, chacun la voit, la vit, la sent, l'apprivoise à sa manière. De celle de Guyane, trouée d'un faible lampadaire sous la lueur duquel, enfant, à la faveur de la moiteur et du silence, elle allait lire en cachette, à celle qui lui permettait de régler ses comptes avec les péchés capitaux que les religieuses lui faisaient réciter dans la journée, la nuit a souvent été, pour Christiane Taubira, une complice, une alliée, une sorte de sœur intime, un moment particulier.

In 1940, Private Raymond Bailey, a 21-year-old Vauxhall motors apprentice, was captured in northern France, becoming a Nazi prisoner of war. But he wouldn't remain one for long... The Longest Walk Home is the incredible account of his daring 2,000 mile escape across Europe and over the Pyrenees, to the safety of British Gibraltar, and home in time for Christmas. Along the way Ray has nerve-shredding encounters with German soldiers and the Spanish Civil Guard. Often he is exhausted and starving.

On September 20, 1940, one of the most famous European art dealers disembarked in New York, one of hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Vichy, France. Leaving behind his beloved Paris gallery, Paul Rosenberg had managed to save his family, but his paintings - modern masterpieces by Cézanne, Monet, Sisley, and others - were not so fortunate. As he fled, dozens of works were seized by Nazi forces, and the art dealer's own legacy was eradicated.

Henry II had all the gifts of the gods. He was charismatic, clever, learned, empathetic, a brilliant tactician, with great physical strength and an astonishing self-belief. Henry was the creator of the Plantagenet dynasty of kings, who ruled through eight generations in command of vast lands in Britain and Europe. Virtually unbeaten in battle, and engaged in a ceaseless round of conquest and diplomacy, Henry forged an empire that matched Charlemagne's.

The bar was high after the glorious reign of the Sun King. Louis XV, his successor, had a difficult time driving the country through religious disputes, intellectual shifts and economical hardness. This eventually led to a steep economic decline, which played an important role in the reaction of the French people against the monarchy, and eventually gave way to the French Revolution.

The best-selling author of BRINGING UP BÉBÉ investigates life in her forties, and wonders whether her mind will ever catch up with her face. When Pamela Druckerman turns 40, waiters start calling her "Madame," and she detects a disturbing new message in mens' gazes: I would sleep with her, but...

"A 10 ans, on aurait payé pour le voir jouer. Les recruteurs se pressaient autour des terrains." Dès ses débuts à l'AS Bondy, le talent de Kylian Mbappé a fait l'unanimité. Son avenir était tout tracé dans les plus grands clubs européens. De nombreux témoignages dévoilent les secrets de sa formation à l'INF Clairefontaine, puis à l'AS Monaco. "Mbappé, Le Petit Prince" raconte aussi son éclosion en Ligue des champions jusqu'à son transfert colossal au PSG durant l'été 2017.

Between 1796 and 1815, the continent of Europe was held in thrall by one of the most remarkable personalities of modern times, a man whose name was on the lips of every man, woman, and child: Napoleon Bonaparte. Certainly, one would have to go back to the time of Charlemagne to find his equal on the field of battle, in the halls of diplomacy, or in the courts of jurisprudence.

The first full history of the pioneering Special Forces units of World War II, dropped behind German lines into France to assist with the D-Day landings, told by a former U.S. Special Forces colonel with unique access to surviving veterans.

Jean Antoinette Poussin, the woman who would become known as Madame de Pompadour, was a middle-class girl of uncertain parenthood who became one of many in a long line of King Louis XV’s mistresses before she died at the age of 42. While none of that stands out on its own when it comes to French history and royalty, historians have labeled her “no ordinary king’s mistress.... She made and unmade ministers, she selected ambassadors, she appointed generals, [and] she conferred pensions and places."