A Maigret Christmas: And other Stories
Georges Simenon
Can crime fiction aspire to literature?
Is it even worth pondering that question? Or am I once again cutting corners, attempting to form a thesis out of a trifle? As important, can anyone as prolific as Georges Simenon create literary work?
I’m not certain I can answer any of those questions and I’d Continue reading
Provence A-Z
Peter Mayle
Travel books–by which I mean books wherein the writer shares with you, placid reader, the fruits of the labors of his or her travels, and not those travel guide books published by Fodor’s and DK that you see anxious tourists tightly gripping while they gum up the streets of the burg in which Continue reading
Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris
A.J. Liebling
I cook because I love to eat. And I learned to eat the not so hard way–I went to France.
Not for an extended stay, of course. Who can afford that? No, I went armed with recommendations from friends and acquaintances.
And I read Liebling.
Abbot Joseph ‘Joe’ Liebling is one of those early-on writers from The New Yorker to whom I gravitate. (I am intentionally using ‘whom’ in protest against Megan Garber and the Continue reading
An Honest Con 