Travelers' Tales France: True Stories

Rating:
Summary: Travelers' Tales France
Review: "All you ever wanted to know about the French but were afraid to ask! Explore the country and its people in a unique and personal way even before getting there. Travelers' Tales: your best passport to France and the French!"-Journal Francais d'Amerique

Rating:
Summary: Good Travel Companion
Review: Both TT: France and TT: Paris are perfect companions on a trip to France. They put you in the mood to experiment when you travel and provide an eager anticipation of French culture. I've read both and will probably take them on an upcoming trip to France as pleasant refreshers. They're good enough that I've written to James O'Reilly and asked for sequels to both books, hoping to deepen exposure to things French.

This book is truly eclectic -- stories about French waiters; demolition teams working on removing explosives from the two world wars; the Celtic stones in Brittany; the Wild West atmospher of l'Ardeche; and stories of invasion and Normandy. Just about all of the stories have been published in newspaper or magazine articles, but are very carefully selected to show a new dimension to France. You'll recognize a few of the authors (Jon Krakauer, 'Into Thin Air,' and Peter Mayle, 'A Year in Provence'). The margin notes are also a great addition to the flavor of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Travel Companion
Review: Both TT: France and TT: Paris are perfect companions on a trip to France. They put you in the mood to experiment when you travel and provide an eager anticipation of French culture. I've read both and will probably take them on an upcoming trip to France as pleasant refreshers. They're good enough that I've written to James O'Reilly and asked for sequels to both books, hoping to deepen exposure to things French.

This book is truly eclectic -- stories about French waiters; demolition teams working on removing explosives from the two world wars; the Celtic stones in Brittany; the Wild West atmospher of l'Ardeche; and stories of invasion and Normandy. Just about all of the stories have been published in newspaper or magazine articles, but are very carefully selected to show a new dimension to France. You'll recognize a few of the authors (Jon Krakauer, 'Into Thin Air,' and Peter Mayle, 'A Year in Provence'). The margin notes are also a great addition to the flavor of the book.

Rating:
Summary: same old tourist-y banalities
Review: I'm a little emabarrased that I actually plowed through this book after having been mostly disappointed by their books on Turkey and Paris.

This book wasn't completely useless. The M.F.K. Fisher piece was really first rate, and there were a couple other items that were pretty solid, but overall, this was just the same old stuff that gets written about tourist experiences that one reads in those little magazines that the airlines publish and put in the pockets in the back of airplane seats for passengers to read.

A more useful book, in my opinion, would be one that collects anecdotes from people native to France talking about their lives. Books like the "Traveler's Tales" series just end up seeming like a glorified trip to a theme park that just happens to have some really convincingly mocked up French countryside and cuisine offerings. All these traveler's tales come off as people who are terminally on the outside looking in.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely edited to give one a good feel of French culture.
Review: We found this book very enjoyable in preparation to spending 2 months in France. Good cultural introduction. We read it out loud to our kids and found that it was a good jumping off point to other books and authors excerpted in the book. Best read before you go. Don't carry it with you.