Recommended reading re: life in France

Writing this blog has been a very satisfying exercise, and I'm grateful for all the feedback I've received. I confess, however, to feeling as though I'm "cribbing" some of my style from a few of my favorite writers. Perhaps this is inevitable.

Nonetheless, if any of you are interested in visiting or living in France, or simply enjoy the humor to be found in others' stories of exasperation and futility, I recommend the following authors / books most highly.

Stephen Clarke
Clarke is a Brit who has lived in France for twelve years. His first two books, A Year in the Merde and Merde Actually describe his initial attempts to open an English Tea-house in France. Both books were best-sellers, and are easy and amusing reads.

Someone planning to visit France would benefit more by reading Talk to the Snail - Ten Commandments for Understanding the French. Note: there are eleven commandments listed -- a very French situation. Clarke speaks French fluently and offers insights into life in France that a piker such as myself intuits, but cannot describe. He also offers simple, concrete tips that'll speed anyone along in acclimating to life in France.

Bill Bryson
If you haven't heard of Bill Bryson, please stop reading this, click over to Amazon and order a copy of A Walk in the Woods, far and away, the funniest book I have ever read. I also recommend A Brief History of (Nearly) Everything and I'm a Stranger Here Myself. But none of these books deal with France.

For that, one must turn to what I assume is one of Bryson's earlier books, Neither Here Nor There, which documents a summer Bryson spent re-tracing a back-packing tour of Europe he took when he was eighteen. It's a funny read, though at times I felt as though he carried a bit too much disdain for the various countries and cities he visited. The tone is a bit caustic. Nonetheless, one would be well-served to adopt Bryson's attitude towards travel: this is amusing, isn't it? I must look quite ridiculous right now. Good thing I'm not taking any of this (or myself) too seriously.

David Sedaris
If I'm ever to be re-incarnated as a chain-smoking, formerly drug-addicted, deeply neurotic homosexual man from North Carolina by way of New York, I want to come back as David Sedaris. Sensitive readers may not appreciate some of his essays -- he treats his experiences with sex, drugs and family very bluntly. And whenever I read his books, or hear him on the radio, I put down my coffee -- lest I burst out laughing and spray my drink all over the place.

Sedaris moved to France for a few years, and he describes his (non-) adjustment in the second half of Me Talk Pretty One Day. His stories about learning French, his fears of sounding like an idiot, his joy in finding shops where people treat him kindly are painfully and wonderfully familiar to me. Keep in mind though, Sedaris is deeply neurotic, and utterly lacks Bryson's and Clark's self-confidence and bemusement when things go awry -- they all share, however, an ability to laugh at themselves and see the absurdities of daily life.

Adam Gopnik
I read Paris to the Moon a few years ago and loved it. I haven't re-read it yet -- not sure why, but there is some reluctance. Perhaps I'm afraid that it'd give me the idea that we should move to France permanently. Gopnik loves France, especially Paris, and he writes movingly about the self-discovery that comes with being a foreigner. Paris to the Moon lacks the knee-slapping, gag-a-minute energy of Clarke and Bryson's books, but it is deeper, more tender and a wonderful exploration of why one might be willing to put up with all the merde associated with living in France.