Sports in France

Hints for Newcomers – Hindsights for Old-Timers: Sports in France in this Olympic year 2024 by Shari Leslie Segall When your spouse was offered a high-paid, top-executive position in Paris, did you declare, “We’ll move to the most beautiful city in the world only if I can find a step-aerobics class catering to my age group and ability level”? Have you said to yourself, “Now that I have played tennis in the Bois de Boulogne, skied in Grenoble and run the Marathon de Nantes, what could possibly be left for me to do?” Does your overpowering attraction to moelleux au chocolat crash full-force into your seeming inability to chase its pernicious effects from your thighs? If the answer to any of these is a resounding “YES!” you have come to the right article. France is often criticized by Anglos for not having the kinds of school/university-based athletic programs common in their native countries. “The battle of Waterloo,” the Duke of Wellington is (apocryphally) noted as h…
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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. COLD COMFORT FARM by Stella Gibbons Flora Post is orphaned at twenty and decides her only option is to descend on relatives - the doomed Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, where she takes each of the family in hand and brings order to their chaos. What we think: This comical portrait of British rural life in the 1930s will have you roaring with laughter. Available at the Book Room, 5€ The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return. What we think: This is a remarkable fictional biography of the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovi…
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Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

What is Bill & Rosa's Book Room ? 

First of all, for us, a Book Room is a comfortable place to spend some time. Think of it as the reading lounge on the ocean liners of yore with a western bent. Our maître-mots are

Read, Write, Relax. Buy, Borrow, Donate.

Bill & Rosa's Book Room has several aspects. It is first a USED BOOK SHOP and a LENDING LIBRARY. There are many novels of all genres for sale plus non-fiction, biographies, history, some poetry, cookbooks, cats, books on Paris or France, memoirs and children's books. Most books are in English, but also in French and even a few bilingual. Prices start at just 2€.

The 500 volume lending library has four sections :

The Sylvie and Henry Noullet Library: novels mostly in English Bill and Rosa's Library of the American West includes no…
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Merde! Stephen Clarke, Interview with a Paris author

"Not one of the other Stephen Clarkes you might have read about, who include an Olympic swimmer, a world-record-holding pumpkin sculptor and various criminals. I'm just the author whose new novel, Merde at the Paris Olympics, is now out." -- Stephen Clarke

If you are an expat in Paris (or not!) you must know the adventures of Paul West, The hero of A Year in the Merde and its sequels depicting French lifestyle from his personal perspective as an English man. The books became incredibly famous as many people could relate to the story. Who never had problems adapting to a new country? The language, the workplace, meeting people... many subjects tackled in the books with a great sense of humour. As a French girl, I was very amused by those books. Even if Stephen Clarke gently points out some of our weird traits, it is obvious that deep down he really loves France. As a matter of fact, I found out he lives in France! I spent a few years in…
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Christmas in Paris – oh the lights!

Each year business associations get together with town halls to illuminate our holiday season evenings. A large portion of the budget comes from the businesses on the illuminated streets. On rue de Sevrès and Saint Placide this is quite clear as the names of the businesses are actually suspended in luminous red letters as part of the decoration. Most of the other displays however are simply for the beauty of the lights and the gaiety that they provide to shopping areas. Nearly all are done with LED technology to keep costs and energy use to a minimum. There are about 100 streets and many monuments which are illuminated in Paris, not to mention the newest displays which are the light trails. The lights will be on through the first week in January. Each year the offering gets better and better.  Here’s a few of our favorite displays. Christmas in Paris Light Trails Jardin des Plantes Every year, the Jardin des Plantes presents a night time light festival in a magical setting…
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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…

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