France Humor

As hotel manager Tom Eastham’s retirement approaches, his best friend tries to persuade him to get back into the sport which he gave up over thirty years earlier. Initially unwilling to brave the roads after so long off the bike, he gradually comes around to the idea of having another bash at cycling and takes to the Lancashire lanes once more. This light-hearted but incisive account traces his first six months back in the saddle, during which time the life-enhancing possibilities of cycling gradually dawn on him as he samples various facets of the sport, complemented by some rather ...

More than 40,000 listeners have enjoyed this story on cassette. Now anyone who's ever dreamed of getting away from it all can enjoy the charms and challenges of A Year in Provence on CD! Peter Mayle and his wife had been to Provence as tourists. They had dreamed of one day trading the long, gray...

Anatole France (1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist who wrote several best sellers. The Revolt of the Angels is a mischievous take on the theology of modern society; it chronicles the thoughts of Arcade, a lowly guardian angel, as he discovers the ugly truths of his divine master in the library of his human charge As Maurice, the young man abandoned by Arcade, struggles to get his guardian back, one gets a view of a wide variety of the author’s artistic personalities, most of whom are fallen angels.

When Thomas Hardy, (who is anything but a famous author), finds himself being ejected from his home he makes a decision. Forced to change his lifestyle, he decides to stop writing manuals for flat pack furniture and try his hand at fiction. This darkly humorous tale with a hint of a thriller follows Tom as he stumbles through his new life, staggering from disaster to disaster, as he attempts to come up with a plot for his new endeavour. What he hadn't bargained for was the unfortunate chain of events he sets off, causing real life to start to mimic his story, as he is pursued by a serial ...

Sylvestre Bonnard is a mild-mannered, kind-hearted book collector and antiquarian, a little tyrannized by his housekeeper maybe, but nonetheless respected and eminent in his field of research into the abbeys, abbots and monks of medieval France. He has spent his life with his books, and knows little of the ways of the world. Resigned to reaching old age and retirement without being able to complete his life's work, he suddenly comes across the one thing that would not only complete it, but that would crown it with success. He heads off on an adventure to get his hands on this treasure and ...

Renowned cookbook writer Paul Stuart, renewed and refreshed from his time in Tuscany, has returned to Scotland to work on his new book. Writing, though, is complicated by Paul's changed domestic circumstances. His editor and new girlfriend, Gloria, has moved in with him despite not being specifically invited, and she's brought her two rather demanding Siamese cats. When Paul's cousin, Chloe, suggests Paul visit her in the French countryside, Paul jumps at the chance. However, once he arrives, he finds his fortunes tangled up with the infamous local restaurant.

The second book in Heloise Hull’s Adept At Fifty series. For all those who like their rosé chilled and their demons hot! I never expected to find my prim and proper mother harboring a secret life, but then again, I never thought I'd quit my job at age fifty and move into my cousin's occult shop in Southern France. C'est la vie. We sell tarot cards and trinkets to tourists, but there’s real magic thrumming through these walls, magic I’m finally learning to trust again. For the first time in years, I feel like myself. Yet my new powers are good at attracting new problems. My dead ...

There is so much to write about the French. Because they invented cinemas, bicycles, cars, photography, radioactivity, but also the bra, the croque-monsieur, the garbage can, and dentures. Because the French express themselves in a language qualified as one of the sexiest, albeit with sounds so often considered animalistic: coucou, quoi, oui…. Because in France, we intrinsically like to rebel against everything: system, government, our employer, and we go so far as to go on strike preventively against a law that does not yet exist. A country where artists transform urinals into works of ...

Julie has her freedom, a dream job as a pastry chef, and a corpse growing cold on her floor... Welcome to Beldoc, a small town in the heart of Provence, imbued with lavender and fresh baked bread! You can idle around, or you can puzzle out a murder mystery. When a man dies on her watch in her pâtisserie, newly divorced chef Julie Cavallo is dismayed. It isn’t that she’s a suspect. The local gendarmerie captain signs off the death as a natural event. A heart attack. But for a reason she won’t discuss, Julie suspects Maurice Sauve was poisoned. What’s a girl to do? She’ll ignore ...

What do fairy tales, such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Hansel and Gretel,” have to do with French peasant life in the eighteenth century? What does a cat massacre reveal about the relationship between artisans and the bourgeois in early modern France? In Robert Darnton’s, The "Great Cat Massacre," the underlying themes of fairy tales and the circumstances surrounding a large killing of cats provide the answers to these questions and reveal the attitudes and concerns of peasants and artisans in eighteenth century France.

From the satirical pen of one of France's greatest cynics comes the story of Candide - young, innocent, guileless - who is cast upon the world after Baron Thunder-ten-trockh learns that his lusty daughter, Cunegonde, has tried to seduce the young man. The novel chronicles Candide's adventures with his blindly optimistic tutor, Dr. Pangloss, through any number of disastrous experiences, as they search for the answers to life's perennial questions.

Introduction to Le Tour Once more I want to inspire you to travel – to France. I have been delighted at the lovely responses I have received to my books and have enjoyed supplying more precise suggestions to some of you personally. This book ties together our journeys in France as a cohesive tour de France. Most of this book comprises of fresh writing but to make the tour flow I have included relevant excerpts from my four book French Travel Series. If you are unfamiliar with those books, I hope you will go on to enjoy the full story of our experiences in French regions such as Provence, ...

Thomas Hardy is still anything but a famous author! He is still, however, getting into an awful lot of trouble whilst trying to write his next masterpiece! Whilst researching a romance he is attempting to write, (very badly,) he inadvertently gets involved in a gang war between rival London gangsters. With a price on his head he flees once more to what he imagines to be the safety of the sleepy French village of Saint Paul, but life is never that simple for our hero! Although this dark comedy is the sequel to 'The Almost Perfect Plot' any lover of black humour will enjoy this tale of death ...

Penguin Island is Anatole France’s most searching and satirical novel. A humorous critique of customs and laws, rituals and rites, its subject is human nature, but its characters are penguins in the mythical land of Penguinia. The story of the strutting penguins and their virtues and vices is not merely a burlesque allegory of French history, but a satire of the history of mankind.

Simon Shaw, a rumpled, fortyish English advertising executive, has decided to leave it all behind, and heads of to France to transform an abandoned police station in the Luberon into a small but world-class hotel. On his side, Simon has a loyal majordomo and a French business partner who is as practical as she is ravishing. But he hasn't counted on the malignant local journalist—or on the mauvaise types who have chosen the neighboring village as the site of their latest bank robbery.

Scotland, 1567. A pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots is dragged out of her palace by rebel lords and imprisoned in the isolated Lochleven Castle, an ancient fortress surrounded by a vast lake. Her infant son and heir, James, has been captured by her enemies. Accompanying Mary are two inconspicuous serving women: observant, ambitious Jane and romantic, quick-tempered Cuckoo, who endeavor to keep their mercurial mistress company while sharing the space of a claustrophobic room over the course of their eleven-month forced stay. Their hosts want them dead. They'll settle for Mary's abdication.

An indispensable, richly informative, and always entertaining audio sourcebook on Provence, by the writer who has made the region his own. Though organized from A to Z, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. It is rather a selection of those aspects of Provence that Peter Mayle, in almost 20 years there, has found to be the most interesting, curious, delicious, or down-right fun.

Look, maybe you're a nice girl, but we're guessing you're more like us or you probably wouldn't have downloaded this audiobook. But being nice is just not the way to get what you want. And this audiobook is about getting what you want. Not in a finding happiness, giving back to the world, being grateful for what you have sort of way. But in a ruling your world, being the most desired, powerful badass in the room way, so you can come out on top of any situation: guys, career, friends, enemies, whatever.

It’s springtime in Provence! Trees are in bloom and critters are abuzz— including a murderer or two. Pastry chef Julie Cavallo is gearing up for the Easter weekend. Life is blissfully tranquil… until she learns of a wrongful conviction. Chiropractor Quentin Vernet was found guilty of fatal malpractice, stripped of his license and imprisoned for a year. And now he has lost all hope of clearing his good name. If only there was a way to help him! Unfortunately, Julie has nothing to go on. Her crew of amateur sleuths deems the case too cold and too sticky. Her gendarme boyfriend warns her...

"We'll Always Have Paris" - The latest laugh-out-loud adventure from million-selling comedy writer Bernice Bloom! Buckle up for a hilarious Parisian escapade with Mary Brown and her mother, Rosie, as they celebrate Rosie's 60th birthday in the City of Love. Armed with just three words of French and big dreams of Parisian glamour, this mother-daughter duo is in for the surprise of their lives! What starts as a simple birthday getaway quickly spirals into a whirlwind of family secrets, outrageous mishaps, and unforgettable encounters. Picture this: A "Save the Badger" parade down the Champs-...