Jeanne Koré Salvato

You may be wondering why I am bringing up the holidays already.

One of the fun things about being an expat in France is when French people tell you what’s wat in America.

Rien, nothing, is a fascinating word.

French movies are an interesting way of looking at French culture.

Not long ago I stumbled upon the French essayist Montaigne, a real meanderer of the mind, if ever there was one.

There’s a French expression se remettre en question. It’s tricky to translate literally, but if you did, it would come out like this: re-put yourself in question.

We had a famous Wordsworth professor who would say, “My glance fell upon such and such in a Wordsworth poem.”

I’d like to continue the story of the cemetery in Montparnasse.

This post is the very first one ever published. We launched on Bloomsday in 2020 on June 16th. And since this Friday is Bloomsday 2023, I thought it would be fun to visit our earliest inspiration.

A cemetery in Paris, anyone?

All methods of transport become precious in a French transport strike, even a non-Uber, non-Lyft ride share called BlaBlaCar.

When we use the term “haute couture,” we think of fashion. But something else goes by this name.

When we think of the word “fashion,” we see that it has an interesting dual meaning.

I recently spent a day in Paris at two stores near the Champs Elysées, the fancy boulevard in Paris.

One of the joys of being an expat living in another country is that you come across something, such as an architect …

One of the interesting things about being an expat, living in another country, is that one thing leads to another.

On my recent trip to Paris, I chose to stay close to the Centre Pompidou near the lively section of Paris called le Marais.

Haven’t we …

Here, in the Gallerie Bessieres located in Chatou, is a photo by Serge Najjar, called The Wait.”

For those of you who are new, we were inspired by The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, who chose seven debut novelists as finalists for a prize.

Here is a refresher of each of the seven books we’ve read to have our own version of the contest sponsored by the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn.

The last novel in our series of seven, The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade, features an unusual background.

One thing about winter, it seems to me, is that the forward motion we so normally enjoy is not really what we experience during this time.

Instead of our usual chatty musings, I though it might be nice to pause.

We are in the thick of the World Cup finale. So just a few words from yours truly on the subject.

The Beautiful Game.

Many great jazz musicians have enjoyed fame and success in Paris. Charles Mingus, the great bass player and jazz composer, was one of them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the time of year when high school seniors are madly preparing their applications to go to college. Did you ever wonder what this might be like in a foreign country?

One day, before school correspondence between teacher and parent had gone on-line, my daughter came home with un mot from her teacher.

In last week’s post we learned (more or less) how to play pétanque, or should I say we learned how pétanque is played.

Pétanque is a game which originated in the south of France, played on a dirt or gravel surface.

The word “brood” is a double entendre, meaning a brood of chickens or even a brood of children, and also “to brood,” which brings to mind someone like Heathcliff in Emily Brontē’s novel, Wuthering Heights.

What is waiting, anyway? Actually, we all know how to do that well, right? But let’s see what a couple of artists have to say.

In a word, don’t do it! I would like to take you on an imaginary, virtual trip to two different banks to change your home address.

Everybody is enamored of the ending of Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot.

The other day I looked at the expiration dare for some tofu. 11/7/22, I read. July 11? What kind of fool does that Food Co-op take me for? This is September!

This novel by Violet Kupersmith is the fifth in the series of seven debut novels selected last year by Brooklyn’s Center for Literary Fiction.

Welcome back to September, whatever that means for you.

I strolled into a used bookstore in Versailles France. It’s true.

Recently one morning, a friend said to me, “Bonjour. Comment allez-vous?” This is a picture perfect greeting in some cases, but there are a few exceptions.

When we hear the phrase, “The Storming of the Bastille,” we fell it’s a rousing moment in French history.

Who was W. E. B. Du Bois? First, to pronounce his name. Du Bois rhymes with “Du Choice.”

It’s the season for summer book lists to begin to appear. And I thought, how about some books translated from French that are fun to read?

Bloomsday has come and gone, although James Joyce’s novel Ulysses will still be 100 years old throughout 2022!

REETINGS ! Happy two year anniversary to the blog! And thanks to you who read it avidly or from time to time or even once in a while. Much appreciated! The following post is from June 16, 2020. The 16th of June is the day in the year 1904 that Joyce set his famous...

Bloomsday is a comin’.

I once read that someone would so rather read what it is like to live in a country, say France, than to hear about the tourist highlights. Now, some of the tourist highlights are very important …

In spite of it all, we have to have a laugh.

I’d like to begin with by brainy, fun cousin’s remarks about readers of a certain age.