Emily in France 🇫🇷 Welcome Back!
We're back (kind of?)
I have always loved back-to-school, and that didn't change even once I was no longer a student and it therefore no longer applied to me. I love buying new pens and notebooks. I love getting all of my fall sweaters out of storage. I love the natural reset button back-to-school seems to push – a restart far more natural, in my mind, than the one we arbitrarily push in early January, which seems to be just in the middle of something: a lazy reset. A fall reset feels natural. And in France, it applies to far more than students.
Because French people tend to take a massive chunk of their vacation in the summer, la rentrée signals the return, not just of school, but also of work, restaurants, and life as we know it. These days, things are quite a bit more complicated, but not so complicated that one of my favorite rentrées isn't happening: the rentrée littéraire.
In France, the release of much-awaited books is often timed for September, and a wander past any of the city's innumerable bookshops will find you facing off with the latest tomes.
While France has not announced an official reconfinement, with new case numbers skyrocketing, I, for one, will be hunkerinig down with a stack of new reads for my own little rentrée litéraire. On my to-read list?
1. Autumn, by Ali Smith (seems only appropriate)
2. The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater (recommended by a dear friend and fellow writer of YA)
3. Dictionnaire Amoureux de la Gastronomie, by Christian Millau (if there's any time to read a 700+-page tome on the history of gastronomy, it's surely now)
4. Naked Lunch, by William S. Borroughs (to which my librarian offered a grim "good luck.")
5. Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (for one of the many book clubs I've joined since March. Apparently book clubs are my sourdough bread.)
What's on your list this rentrée littéraire?
What I'm Eating
Before heading south this summer, I managed to snag a terrace table at 10th arrondissement Bonhomie for watermelon-feta salad, vegetarian zucchini keftas, and a truly delightful charred octopus dish with a sweet-and-savory Mediterranean flair.
What I'm Writing
1. In France, a complaint is an appropriate and frequent conversation starter – but the appropriateness of when, to whom and about what to complain is a delicate art. More for the BBC.
2. COVID has forever changed the Parisian dining landscape. I delved into how and why for Liberal Currents.
3. Halibut on the Moon offers an exquisite – and devastating – look at mental illness. Find out more on the blog.
What I'm Reading
1. I haven't been in NYC since the pandemic broke out, but this multimedia story from the New York Times is a reminder of the sounds of the city – whether you're missing it from near or far.
2. Tuscany's medieval gelato windows are proving useful during the pandemic, Insider reports.
3. Over 50 years ago, Harold A. Franklin was unable to complete his Master's degree at Auburn due to racism. Today, the octogenarian returned to finally defend his thesis, The Washington Post reports.
A bientôt !