BillandRosasBookRoom

International Bookstores in Paris

FUSAC's own Bill & Rosa's Book Room, is composed mainly of used English books. We also have a certain number of French language books. And when we also receive books in other languages Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish we are reminded what a cosmopolitan city Paris is. In fact we read recently on the city of Paris' website in carefully inclusive French that the population of the city is composed of 22% Paris-born, some place else we saw 26% foreign-born and the rest of Parisians are non Parisian French. The international community stems from 176 nationalities. And 3/4 of Parisians think the ideal city is multicultural. This got us to thinking that there must be bookshops that deal in other languages beyond English and French so we set out to see what we could find and composed this list. After the foreign language shops there's a list of English bookstores in Paris and a few of the historic French shops we thought we just couldn't leave out. If you love…

Literary Fun and Games

Time for some English Literary Fun and Games Identify the following Literary Fun first lines with the novel or short story that they open. Who was the author? He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish. When Mrs. Frederic C. Little's second son arrived. Everyone noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes. We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had nothing to do with it --it was the black kitten's fault entirely. "Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was a mooc…

Tarsila do Amaral Exhibition

Tarsila do Amaral exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg, until 02 February 2025 The Musée du Luxembourg is hosting the first-ever French retrospective of Brazilian modernist artist, Tarsila do Amaral, also known as Tarsila. She is one of Brazil’s most famous and best-loved artists and a central figure in Brazilian modernism. She was born in 1886 in a rural town outside of São Paulo, in a traditional Brazilian bourgeois family. She benefitted from a good education, studied piano and painting and traveled to Europe for the first time when she was 16. She was married by 18 years old, but her husband did not support her wish to pursue painting, so she divorced him and moved to Paris to study painting in 1920. Tarsila do Amaral enrolled at the Académie Julian, the famous school for modern art and also studied with André Lhote, Albert Gleizes, and Fernand Léger. She moved between Paris and São Paulo and used cubism as a means of developing her own style. Two years later, she joine…

James Baldwin centennial

James Baldwin was born on August 2 1924 in Harlem, New York, to a young single mother who later married a minister. He found refuge in reading books at the public library and started writing at a young age. Despite a fraught relationship with his stepfather, Baldwin followed in his footsteps and was a preacher for three years (a period that he describes as formative in Go Tell It on the Mountain) and took odd jobs to support himself, his siblings and mother. He eventually moved to Greenwich Village where he worked as a freelance writer and met Richard Wright, who helped him get a grant that would support him. He started getting essays published in national periodicals around this time. Baldwin was unhappy in New York, where he felt like his identity as a black gay man would not be accepted. In 1948, at age 24, he moved to Paris on another grant and found that France provided reprieve from the discrimination that he had felt in the United States, making it possible for hi…

Coups de cœur at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

Coups de cœur at Bill & Rosa's Book Room is an article that features a favorite selection our recent donations that are available for purchase. AS OLD AS TIME by Liz Braswell. A reimagining of classic Disney stories in surprising new ways. When Belle touches the enchanted rose, memories flood through her mind — memories of a mother she thought she would never see again. And, stranger still, she sees that her mother is none other than the beautiful enchantress who cursed the castle and all its inhabitants. Shocked and confused, Belle and the Beast will have to unravel a dark mystery about their families that is 21 years in the making. What we think: Great for the spooky season and having words explained in French on the side makes it ideal for those just starting to read in English. Available at the Book Room, 6€ THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster. For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through …

Anglo authors in Paris

Paris is inspiring! Did you notice? This fair city has inspired quite a few writers in the English-speaking Paris community and they have set their ideas into novels and stories. Since community is more important than ever, we are presenting recent fiction by Anglo authors in Paris, some quite well-known and some first books. The books below are not all set in Paris, but they are certainly inspired by the community here. Books are pretty much the easiest thing to choose and send for gifts! Keep an eye on Bill & Rosa's Book Room for 2024 events by these Anglo authors in Paris.

THE PARIS LIBRARY by Janet Skeslien Charles, a now Parisian who grew up in Montana down the street from a French war bride.

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her belov…

Interview with American writer Jake Lamar

American writer Jake Lamar will visit Bill & Rosa's Book Room on June 3 to discuss his latest novel, Viper’s Dream which has just been published in English. He is an American author who has lived in Paris for almost 30 years, he teaches creative writing at Sciences Po and is the author of a memoir, seven novels, numerous essays, reviews and short stories and a play. He is also the recipient of several prestigious prizes, among which the Lyndhurst Prize and France’s Grand Prize for best foreign thriller. He is fascinating to listen to, passionate about Harlem jazz and has a excellent speaking voice that will draw you in. This is the first part of our interview with him:

Q: You started out as a journalist for Time Magazine, so my question is, have you always wanted to be a writer and have you always known you wanted to write ficiton?

A: I’ve known since the age of 12 that I wanted to be a writer and that I wanted to write fiction. The jo…

American author in Paris Jake Lamar

This is the second part of our interview with American author in Paris Jake Lamar, his editor calls him the most French of the Americans. Here's how he does his craft.

For part one of American author in Paris see this link

Q: Do you have a writing routine, or any quirky routines while you write?

A: Music is first and foremost. I kept my bachelor’s apartment after I met my wife. I met her in 1996, at that time I had a small studio apartment in Montmartre, after we moved in together I kept that apartment as my office. I have a separate place where I work. We live in the 18th arrondissement together, but my office is about 5-7 minutes away. When I’m there, I’m in my sacred work space. I usually start work in the afternoon. I haven’t been able to have a regular writing pattern for years. Back in the 90s, I had a generous grant and back then, writers could live from publisher’s advances, but those days are over. During my fi…

Christmas Crackers, come make you own

We may be originally from America but we like to adopt the best traditions from where ever they come. One of those is the British Christmas Cracker. Make your own Christmas crackers from old books at our workshop at the Book Room on 11 December 2021, 16h. The workshop is open to everyone over 11 years old and will be conducted in English, albeit American English, but come on over for some fun. 3€ per person covers supplies. We'll provide everything including a template you can take home. Sign up at Brbookroom@gmail.com Limited by available space to 8 participants. At Christmas you can make personalized crackers with the contents and designs specially chosen for your family and friends or buy them in a store. Either way they are set on the table as part of the festive decor and are opened when everyone sits down. Each person takes the ends of a cracker and pulls. Or with arms crossed everyone holds their own cracker in their right hand and pulls their neighbor’s cracke…

Click and Collect at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

Follow the links below to view pdf files of the current inventory of Bill and Rosa's Book Room. More than 7000 titles!

Available for Click and Collect pick up or delivery, just email fusac.office@gmail.com with your selection, we'll send you a link for payment via CB (or take check or cash when you get the books) and arrange for pick up.

Are you in the Yvelines? Free delivery to these towns: Villepreux, Les Clayes-sous-Bois, Plaisir, Feucherolles, St Nom-la-Bretèche, Rennemoulin, Fontenay-le-Fleury, Noisy-le-Grand, Bailly. Minimum order 25€.

Anyone who orders 5+ books will receive a free copy of Elaine Sciolino's La Séduction (A book about France and the French and how seductions of all types, not just sexual, make them tick.)

The inventory list is organized by Sections and within the section by author. To find out more about a particular book you could copy the ISBN number and do an internet search. Nearly all of them …