Download or read book Dial M for Merde written by Stephen Clarke and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This international bestseller from the author of A Year in the Merde “combines the gaffes of Bridget Jones with the boldness of James Bond” (Publishers Weekly). When the glorious oceanographer Gloria Monday convinces Paul West to travel to the swank beaches of southern France—where she’s investigating caviar-smuggling cartels—he assumes he’s about to have the time of his life. But for West, France has always been full of surprises underfoot, and this trip is no exception to the rule. He’s soon dragged into an undercover investigation that goes all the way to the top and leaves him feeling sometimes like James Bond, sometimes like Inspector Clouseau. Dial M for Merde is a comic caper that pokes fun at French society at every level, from pompous politicians to grumpy waitstaff.

Download or read book Dial M for Merde written by Stephen Clarke and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his disastrous American adventures, Paul West is back in France, and this time he’ll be kicking up merde all along the Cote d’Azur. Hooking up with an English girl nicknamed M that he met in Vegas, it’s a peaceful working holiday—at first. Suddenly, M becomes secretive, going off to meetings and overreacting to questions about her whereabouts. Then, a bombshell. While M is at one of her meetings, Paul is told that she is not who she seems to be. That she is involved in a plot so sinister that she and Paul’s every move has been watched since they arrived. And if Paul doesn’t agree to stick with M and find out who she’s working for, then he’s going to prison for a long, long time as an accomplice. Suddenly the Cote d’Azur doesn’t feel quite so sunny…

Download or read book In the Merde for Love written by Stephen Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest episode in Stephen Clarke's almost-true account of his adventures as an expat in France is just as winning as the first. This "anti-Mayle" will have readers chortling over their croissants and café au lait while Paul West struggles to solve the mysteries inherent in life in France. What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Is it really polite to sleep with your boss's mistress? And why are there no public health warnings on French nude beaches? Paul discovers how to judge a French vacationer by the rustiness of his bicycle; opens his English tearoom; and finally understands why Parisian waiters are so cranky. Just in time for spring in Paris, find out if Paul finds the perfect French mademoiselle or if it all ends in merde!

Download or read book A Year in the Merde written by Stephen Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-12-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Year in the Merde is the almost-true account of the author's adventures as an expat in Paris. Based on his own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action-and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit", the book is narrated by Paul West, a twenty-seven-year-old Brit who is brought to Paris by a French company to open a chain of British "tea rooms." He must manage of a group of lazy, grumbling French employees, maneuver around a treacherous Parisian boss, while lucking into a succession of lusty girlfriends (one of whom happens to be the boss's morally challenged daughter). He soon becomes immersed in the contradictions of French culture: the French are not all cheese-eating surrender monkeys, though they do eat a lot of smelly cheese, and they are still in shock at being stupid enough to sell Louisiana, thus losing the chance to make French the global language. The book will also tell you how to get the best out of the grumpiest Parisian waiter, how to survive a French business meeting, and how not to buy a house in the French countryside. The author originally wrote A Year in the Merde just for fun and self-published it in France in an English-language edition. Weeks later, it had become a word-of-mouth hit for expats and the French alike. With translation rights now sold in eleven countries and already a bestseller in the UK and France, Stephen Clarke is clearly a Bill Bryson (or a Peter Mayle...) for a whole new generation of readers who can never quite decide whether they love-or love to hate-the French.

Download or read book Paris Revealed written by Stephen Clarke and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious insider’s guide to Paris by the author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French: “Clarke’s eye for detail is terrific” (The Washington Post). Stephen Clarke may have adopted Paris as his home, but he still has an Englishman’s eye for the people, cafés, art, sidewalks, food, fashion, and romance that make Paris a one-of-a-kind city. This irreverent outsider-turned-insider guide shares local savoir faire, from how to separate the good restaurants from the bad to navigating the baffling Métro system. It also provides invaluable insights into the etiquette of public urination and the best ways to experience Parisian life without annoying the Parisians (a truly delicate art). Clarke’s witty and expert tour of the city leaves no boulevard unexplored—even those that might be better left alone.

Download or read book The Merde Factor written by Stephen Clarke and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Englishman Paul West is living the Parisian dream, and doing his best not to annoy the French. But recently things have been going très wrong: He's stuck in an apartment so small that he has to cut his baguettes in two to fit them in the kitchen. His research into authentic French cuisine is about to cause a national strike - and it could be all his fault. His Parisian business partner is determined to close their tea-room. And thinks that sexually harrassing his female employees is a basic human right. And Paul's gorgeous ex-girlfriend seems to be stalking him. Threatened with eviction, unemployment and bankrupcy, Paul realises that his personal merde factor is about to hit the fan...

Download or read book Talk to the Snail written by Stephen Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever walked into a half-empty Parisian restaurant, only to be told that it's "complet"? Attempted to say "merci beaucoup" and accidentally complimented someone's physique? Been overlooked at the boulangerie due to your adherence to the bizarre foreign custom of waiting in line? Well, you're not alone. The internationally bestselling author of A Year in the Merde and In the Merde for Love has been there too, and he is here to help. In Talk to the Snail, Stephen Clarke distills the fruits of years spent in the French trenches into a truly handy (and hilarious) book of advice. Read this book, and find out how to get good service from the grumpiest waiter; be exquisitely polite and brutally rude at the same time; and employ the language of l'amour and le sexe. Everything you need is here in this funny, informative, and seriously useful guide to getting what you really want from the French.

Download or read book 1000 Years of Annoying the French written by Stephen Clarke and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of A Year in the Merde and Talk to the Snail offers a highly biased and hilarious view of French history in this international bestseller. Things have been just a little awkward between Britain and France ever since the Norman invasion in 1066. Fortunately—after years of humorously chronicling the vast cultural gap between the two countries—author Stephen Clarke is perfectly positioned to investigate the historical origins of their occasionally hostile and perpetually entertaining pas de deux. Clarke sets the record straight, documenting how French braggarts and cheats have stolen credit rightfully due their neighbors across the Channel while blaming their own numerous gaffes and failures on those same innocent Brits for the past thousand years. Deeply researched and written with the same sly wit that made A Year in the Merde a comic hit, this lighthearted trip through the past millennium debunks the notion that the Battle of Hastings was a French victory (William the Conqueror was really a Norman who hated the French) and pooh-poohs French outrage over Britain’s murder of Joan of Arc (it was the French who executed her for wearing trousers). He also takes the air out of overblown Gallic claims, challenging the provenance of everything from champagne to the guillotine to prove that the French would be nowhere without British ingenuity. Brits and Anglophiles of every national origin will devour Clarke’s decidedly biased accounts of British triumph and French ignominy. But 1000 Years of Annoying the French will also draw chuckles from good-humored Francophiles as well as “anyone who’s ever encountered a snooty Parisian waiter or found themselves driving on the Boulevard Périphérique during August” (The Daily Mail). A bestseller in Britain, this is an entertaining look at history that fans of Sarah Vowell are sure to enjoy, from the author the San Francisco Chronicle has called “the anti-Mayle . . . acerbic, insulting, un-PC, and mostly hilarious.”

Download or read book The Bookseller written by Mark Pryor and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When his bookseller friend, a former Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter, is kidnapped and other booksellers are murdered, Hugo Marston, head of security for the U.S. embassy in Paris, discovers a shocking conspira.

Download or read book The Nasty Bits written by Anthony Bourdain and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller The good, the bad, and the ugly, served up Bourdain-style. Bestselling chef and Parts Unknown host Anthony Bourdain has never been one to pull punches. In The Nasty Bits, he serves up a well-seasoned hellbroth of candid, often outrageous stories from his worldwide misadventures. Whether scrounging for eel in the backstreets of Hanoi, revealing what you didn't want to know about the more unglamorous aspects of making television, calling for the head of raw food activist Woody Harrelson, or confessing to lobster-killing guilt, Bourdain is as entertaining as ever. Bringing together the best of his previously uncollected nonfiction--and including new, never-before-published material--The Nasty Bits is a rude, funny, brutal and passionate stew for fans and the uninitiated alike.

Download or read book Saving Europe written by Carlo Bastasin and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals how the nexus of international economics and national politics pushed the monetary union to the brink of extinction, how that disaster was avoided, and why the long-term viability of a common currency challenges politics.

Download or read book In the City of Shy Hunters written by Tom Spanbauer and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young gay man comes of age amid the AIDs epidemic of “an expertly drawn, starkly authentic, early-1980s Manhattan” in this novel by the acclaimed author (Publishers Weekly). Shy, afflicted with a stutter, and struggling with his sexuality, Will Parker comes to New York to escape his provincial western hometown. In New York, he finds himself surrounded for the first time by people who understand and celebrate his quirks and flaws. He also begins an unforgettable love affair with a volatile, six-foot-five African American drag queen and performance artist named Rose. But even as he is falling in love with Rose and growing into himself, Will must watch as AIDS escalates from a rumor into a devastating tragedy. When a vicious riot erupts in a local park, Will seizes the chance to repay the city for all it has taught him. Tom Spanbauer is the critically acclaimed author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon and founder of the successful workshop Dangerous Writing, where he’s taught students including Chuck Palahniuk. With In the City of Shy Hunters, he offers a “rich and colorful” historical novel told with “raw power” (San Francisco Chronicle). “Spanbauer’s genius resides even in the asides . . . teas[ing] out the genuine complexity of human love.” —The Washington Post Book World “Ambitious and compelling . . . a mixture of the ghastly, the hilarious, and the curiously touching.” —The Seattle Times “In the City of Shy Hunters has the earmarks of a literary landmark . . . Its importance and originality are unmistakable.” —The Baltimore Sun “A big ambitious stylefest of a novel.” —Village Voice

Download or read book Merde in Europe written by Stephen Clarke and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-05-05 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE POST-BREXIT EDITION - brand new chapters with extra EU chaos for Englishman Paul West. An Englishman, Paul West, goes to Brussels to work for a French MEP. There he gets an insider's view of what really goes on in the massive madhouse that is the EU Parliament. With the referendum on the horizon, things are even more hysterical than usual. When the Brexit result comes in, Paul has to make a decision. If he wants to work in Europe, should he apply for a French passport? But can an Englishman really become French? Can he sing the bloodthirsty 'Marseillaise'? Can he even pronounce the word 'Marseillaise'? And as Paul contemplates his own personal Brexit, the whole of Brussels seems to be going into meltdown ...

Download or read book Eureka written by Walker Royce and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This book] illuminates the communications power as well as the amusement potential of the English language. Instead of highlighting all the hairball rules of English, [the author] leads us through a mentally invigorating workout of English usage - good and bad."--P. [4] of cover.

Download or read book The Moviegoer written by Walker Percy and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review). On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul. A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life. With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.

Download or read book Merde Happens written by Stephen Clarke and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2007 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merde hits the U.S! In the third volume of his escapades, Paul West is driving across the USA in a Mini, and feeling just as foreign as he ever did in France. He has accepted a job promoting the UK as a tourist destination. His tiny car is supposed to symbolize Britain's image - self-deprecating, fun, stylish but not snobbish.

Download or read book Acculturated written by Naomi Schaefer Riley and published by Templeton Press. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary popular culture, from books to film to television to music to the deepest corners of the internet, has provoked much criticism, some of it well deserved. Yet, popular culture is culture for many Americans—particularly younger Americans. It is the only kind of cultural experience they seek and the currency in which they trade. In Acculturated, twenty-three thinkers examine the rituals, the myths, the tropes, the peculiar habits, the practices, and the neuroses of our modern era. Every culture finds a way for people to tell stories about themselves. We rely on these stories to teach us why we do the things we do, to test the limits of our experience, to reaffirm deeply felt truths about human nature, and to teach younger generations about vice and virtue, honor and shame, and a great deal more. A phenomenon like the current crop of reality television shows, for example, with their bevy of “real” housewives, super-size families, and toddler beauty-pageant candidates, seems an unlikely place to find truths about human nature or examples of virtue. And yet, on these shows, and in much else of what passes for popular culture these days, a surprising theme emerges: Move beyond the visual excess and hyperbole, and you will find the makings of classic morality tales. As the title suggests, readers will find in these pages “A-Culture Rated.” This lively roundtable of “raters” includes renowned cultural critics like Caitlin Flannigan and Chuck Colson and celebrated culture creators like the producers of the hit ABC comedy Modern Family and the host of TLC’s What Not to Wear. Editors Christine Rosen and Naomi Schaefer Riley have tasked these contributors—both the critics and the insiders—with taking a step or two back from the unceasing din of popular culture so that they might better judge its value and its values and help readers think more deeply about the meaning of the narratives with which they are bombarded every waking minute. In doing so, the editors hope to foster a wide-reaching public conversation to help us think more clearly about our culture. CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE Judy Bachrach, Megan Basham, Mark Bauerlein, Pia Catton, Chuck Colson, Paul Corrigan, Caitlin Flanagan, Meghan Cox Gurdon, Margo Howard, Kay S. Hymowitz, Jonathan V. Last, Herb London, Stacy London, Rob Long, Megan McArdle, Wilfred M. McClay, Caitrin Nicol, Joe Queenan, Emily Esfahani Smith, Brad Walsh, and Tony Woodlief.