Eccentric France

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A magnificent octopus! - Rated
I once recommended this book to Eddie Izzard, but - more fool him - he didn't take up my recommendation there and then. "Why should I read it?" he asked me, thinking perhaps I was some strange, maybe eccentric person myself who was trying to foist something unpleasant on him just because he is famous. "Because," I said, "it's full of the most bizarre stuff, a perfect starting point for one of your flights of fancy." (My choice of phrase was influenced by my having just read Letcher's account of the last journey of the pioneering aviator Charles Nungesser, who on May 8th, 1927 set off from Le Bourget in a Levasseur biplane: "On the side was painted... a black heart containing a skull and crossbones, a coffin and two candles." He was never seen again. "What did he expect?" I asked. Mr. Izzard hurried away to buy breakfast somewhere.)

This book is full of, absolutely stuffed with, such fascinating details, and the amount of research involved must have been... well, eccentric. But you can see from my example above that it is not quite what you might expect from "Bradt Travel Guides" or from a book called "Eccentric France." Be assured, however, that there is plenty of travel guidance given. Entries have geographical information - where to go to see, for example, the Musee Edith Piaf - and, of course, these days, website information is given in abundance. And there is indeed a great deal about France itself - its festivals, its food, its gardens and museums. The author has travelled widely, read widely, eaten and drunk widely and his knowledge is shared with his readers.

But this book is more than a travel guide, much more. It is about the French. It is a Concise National Biographical Dictionary of Eccentric French People. But it is yet more! Because Letcher - an expatriate Englishman - has widened his net to snare a host of people who just happened to have been in France, and whose lives were interesting. P>It is well written and easy to read - as it should be by a man who has published more than a thousand articles, and more than a dozen books. I look forward to reading more by him. Buy this book if you love the French and/or France, or just if you like good stories well told.

France - just the way I love it! - Rated
Why do the men of Provence play with their square balls in the dusty squares above the Riviera? Answer: if they used round boules the bowls would roll down the hillside. The author has obviously spent years delighting in just those joyeous oddities and eccentricitites that make France special. I spent a very happy afternoon turning the pages that celebrate the off-beat and the special and alternating between happy smiles and guffaws at the gems he has sampled on our behalf. A wry and affectionate and very British love affair with France.

Excellent Eccentric France! - Rated
Quite simply, this book is a "must have"! Whether you live in or near France; whether you plan to go there on holiday or whether you are simply interested in learning some of the most wonderful and interesting anecdotes--and discovering more about the eccentricities of our friends across the water--this is the book you need.

another side of france - Rated
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book before we went to France on our annual holidays. Piers Letcher has a very light and amusing style. We stayed for a week in a country house near Angers and mostly just lounged by the pool, but we had two days out on Eccentric France recommended trips. Both were works of sculpture but very different. The first, L'Hélice Terrestre de l'Orbière, was a converted troglodyte village which had been carved out in swirling shapes. Very off the beaten track, our requests for refreshments produced some undrinkable home-made wine and a few ice lollies dug out from an old freezer and produced on a plate. The other, La Frenouse, was a rather grander affair. Robert Tatin was a builder in Paris who started on his life's work when he retired. It is a wonderfully harmonious collection of caricatures, leading to a wonderful, enormous dragon with an ornamental garden in his insides. I have never seen anything like either of these places and visiting them added immeasurably to our holiday - and our difficult-to-please young children (aged 8 and 9) were quite impressed too.

It was never this much fun at school - Rated
In summary: brilliantly entertaining.

I had intended to read only a small portion of the book at first sitting, but four hours later I found I was still reading. Piers Letcher has put together a picture of France that covers both the familiar (or so we thought) and the unfamiliar and he has done so in a very gentle and amusing style: the author's humour is very evident throughout as is his affection for his adopted country.

This is not your typical travel guide: I know of no other that has made me laugh out loud like this one has. In fact, I shouldn't even call it a travel guide really since it covers science, history, art, politics and a host of other, slightly more bizarre, topics. But, like all good guides, it encourages you to want to visit the places it describes, if only to see for yourself some of the oddities that human nature has managed to put together.

Highly recommended.