History and culture
​History - Josephine, Joan d’Arc and all those wars with the English! Oh-la-la. Here you’ll find books about the people and situations that shaped France.
​
Culture - One small word to describe all those other interests about France where my reading leads me, including French-themed novels, gardening, crafts, and beautiful interiors.
Parisian by Design (Interiors by David Jimenex)
Author: Diane Dorrans Saeks
American designer David Jimenez is living a beautiful life. This coffee table book, authored by Diane Dorrans Saeks, lets us into his private word through the most beautiful visual journeys around his living and working spaces.
The French Dog
The French Cat
Author: Rachael Hale McKenna
A picture tells a thousand words, and Rachael, a fellow kiwi, has much to say… her beautiful books on beloved French cats and dogs was one of the first large sized books about France that I received as a gift from my lovely Kirk.
Rachael has a huge international following who love her photography of baby humans and baby animals. Her website link is here.
For these two books, she explains how moving to France with new husband and baby, was the culmination of a dream to live in la belle pays, and to have the time to capture animals in their natural habitat, resting, playing, interacting with other animals, and thinking deep thoughts.
 |
|---|
 |
French Blooms
Author: Sandra Sigman
It’s a beautiful book. You can feel the author has poured her love of flowers, France and stylish living into every arrangement and description. Sandra’s relationship with flowers starts with her mother working with flowers, but it was not until she was in Paris and noticing how the French relate to flowers that she realised her own future lay down that rose petal lined path as well.
Life in a French Country House
Author: Cordelia De Castellane
Old French Country House + Fashion + Lots of money....​​
Ok, that probably sounded a bit rude but that was my first impressions of this book. I initially went through it quite quickly (flick, flick, flick) with a certain look on my face.
It all started off wrong for me in the foreword that talks of the authors ‘multilayered ancestral pedigree of some of the most venerable aristocratic families in Europe’. It was just pages and pages of photos of table settings and her beautiful house. It was like an Instagram version of life. Who lives like this?
Timeless Paris
Author: Marin Montagut
Venture though unfamiliar doorways...
As a person who loves crafts and appreciates history, this book is right up my alley.
Marin Montagut, himself a seller of artisanal goods, showcases a range of Parisian ateliers who have stood the test of time to still be offering their goods and services.
Timeless Paris showcases 19 Parisian businesses that tell the evolution of quality, design, and innovation, within the crafts industry, over hundreds of years.
In his words: “I encountered dedicated men and women who are the humble guardians of a priceless heritage of artisanal and ancestral expertise”.
