Looking for a quick nonfiction read? Interested in cultural history? Read The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography. Graham Robb has a fun writing and speaking style. (He came to speak at BYU. And he's British, which helps.) As he says in the intro, this book is the result of 14,000 miles in the saddle and 4 years in the library. He did lots of research, rode his bike all over France and then wrote about it. The book is a mishmash of cultural anthropology, a walk through time from the pre-Revolutionary "land of deserts" to 2005 French suburbia. It's full of counterintutive facts about 18th- and 19th-century village life and things that would never have crossed my mind before. Here's the NY Times review if you're interested.
Happy birthday, Wendy!
1 comment:
I'll put it on my list. We miss you! Hope your gums are feeling good.
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