Where:

Description:  How can your story empower your life? By telling it. After taking the time to create a safe environment, participants will study the way we construct our stories and explore new ways to create the framework for our own voices to emerge authentically. Whether you are interested in writing memoir, personal essay, creative non-fiction or poetry, this class will encourage you to observe and examine your own interpretation of yourself and how it is reflected through your writing. Mara Eve Robbins is an award winning writer who specializes in poetry but appreciates and creates all forms of literary expression. A graduate in creative writing from Hollins University, she has been active in the literary arts in Floyd County since she was a teenager and facilitates writer’s groups and spoken word events. Mara believes that we all have a voice that can be translated onto the page, and advocates joy in writing for all ages—it is never too early or too late. She is committed to furthering appreciation of both the written and the spoken word within her immediate and greater community, and firmly believes that knowing and telling your story makes a profound difference in your life and the lives of those you share it with.

Fifty Shades of Grey

By EL James. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

528 pages. $10.98

Reviewed by Dana Bailey

If any of you guessed the book I was referring to last week when I asked the question whether or not to continue reading was “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E L James then you were correct.

Seeing all the hype and media promotion around the book, I was curious. I told my husband about it and asked if he minded if I read something like that. He got a sly smile on his face and said, “I guess that’d be alright.”

Let me stop here and add that I asked him out of respect not because I needed his permission. This is important only in that it shows where I was coming from when I started the book. We all read books differently. Our past and current experiences, faith, morals, and dreams all come into play with how we read. Hype and synopsizes also are a part.

When I started this book I expected to find a love story mixed with erotica. I knew it had BDSM elements, but since the book had gone mainstream I figured them to be light and confined to the bedroom. Basically I figured it would be a fun, light, kinky romance.

Recently, I saw an interview on CNN where one woman called it a Disney story for adults. We must have been reading two different books because this is not the book I read.

To be fair, this could have been my reading of the book. Like I said before where we are often influences how we read. I hate to say a book was bad, especially one that’s doing so well as this one, because a lot of it depends on taste and opinion, so I’ll simply say I do not get the reaction to this book. It did not do anything for me. If you are one of the people who did get it and loved it, feel free to enlighten me.

Below is my reaction to the book. **Beware, there are spoilers**

In simple terms the book is about a girl (I used ‘girl’ on purpose), Anastasia Steel, who meets a gorgeous, wealthy man, Christian Grey, and because of chemistry is willing to do anything for him. He’s drawn to her as well even though at this point in the book it’s not clear why. However he doesn’t do the girlfriend thing. Instead, he shows her his ‘red room of pain’ (Ana’s term not mine) and asks her to sign a contract describing all the things she’d be willing to let him do to her (it’s quite an extensive list). He wants her to be his submissive in everything inside that room and out. He wants permission to discipline her for things she does when they are together and when they’re not.

This is as far as I got when I wrote that last post.

I’m sure you’re aware that this was written as “Twilight” fan fiction and that Ana and Christian are basically Bella and Edward. The major problem with this is that if you recall in the first book Bella was only 16. And Ana very much reads, at least at the beginning, like a 16 year old. And at this point the only thing we know about Christian is that he’s a billionaire, he’s gorgeous, always has a sly, secretive smile on his face, is a control freak (Ana’s term not mine), and has stalker tendencies.

To me this was a very disturbing relationship. It read like an abusive (mainly mental, but some physical) situation rather than an erotic romance. Some crazy scenarios started playing in my mind. But at the same time, I was intrigued as to whether or not it would turn out like I imagined.

So I distanced myself from what I had read. Then I asked a friend who had finished the first two books and got some feedback from her. Before reading the book again, I had to put away my 37 year old self and think of it in terms of the naive girl, who believed in giving yourself to someone in hopes they’ll change, telling the story.

With that said the latter half of the book didn’t turn out as bad as I had imagined, but there’s still little that I can tout as good other than she does grow up some and finally makes an adult decision at the end.

The writing was what I expect from fan fiction, but not from Random House. The characters are not well developed in the beginning. Their motivations are shaky. Ana and her inner goddess are especially annoying. Note: if you didn’t like Bella you won’t like Ana. Christian reads like a sociopath. And the end enlightenment was a little too sudden. There are good parts to the book, but they are hidden beneath all the mess.

I’m not sure how something can be called a love story when the best part of the book is that she left him. Maybe the second and third books are better, but I don’t plan to find out.

By Ed Falco. Grand Central Publishing.

431 pages. $27.99

Reviewed by Bob Willis

BOB WILLIS is a retired Roanoke Times editorial writer.

Mario Puzo has been dead since 1999, his flow of Godfather-type books stanched. His legacy, however, included a screenplay. Using that and channeling its author, novelist and Virginia Tech professor Ed Falco has produced a book chockablock with the sort of bloody Mafia mayhem that made Puzo famous more than 40 years ago.

Another writer, Mark Winegardner, has penned two sequels to the Godfather saga. Falco’s book, however, is a prequel, picking up the Corleone family in 1933. Vito Corleone, 41, is well-established in organized crime, but still elbowing for his share of the loot among his peers in the New York-New Jersey area. Peter Clemenza is already his caporegime. Carmella is Vito’s devoted wife and mother to his young brood, which includes the hotheaded Sonny and the retiring, studious Michael. There is also the future consiglieri Tom Hagen, an orphan whom the family took in when he was a child. Puzo devotees will recognize many others in the supporting cast.

Most of the children do not know what Vito does to provide them with a comfortable upbringing; simply, he has an olive-oil importing business. But as he counsels midway of the book, “Respect is everything. In this life, you can’t demand respect; you must command it.” To do so, this Sicilian must show others, especially rivals, that he is both shrewd and ruthless, ready when necessary to humiliate, torture, maim and kill.

To his credit, Vito does not want his children to follow in his footsteps. “There is more money and more power in the legitimate business world, and there’s nobody coming to kill you, the way it has always been for me.” But the truth will out. Sonny, the eldest, has a knack for surveillance and a penchant for crime; before his father suspects it, Sonny has assembled a gang of fellow Italian and Irish young men and begun hijacking Prohibition-era alcohol shipments meant for another crime boss. Trouble! Vito can finesse many situations, but ultimately there comes the showdown with other Mafia families that will elevate him to Godfather status.

Falco, who shares with Puzo an Italian heritage and an early background in teeming Greater New York (His niece, Edie Falco, is known for her TV portrayals of “Nurse Jackie” and the mobster’s spouse in “The Sopranos”), moves his story along smartly. There are steady suspense and gripping description. To this reviewer, the wanton cruelty — not to mention the corruption of public servants — regularly depicted in the book is sickening; and, my God, there are people like that on the loose in our society?

But there’s no doubt that for many readers, this is a key part of such works’ appeal. That, and the characters’ double lives, outwardly conventional and striving for respectability, inwardly at war with any force that would put bounds on their greed and ambition. There is constant compromise of a sort that confounds normal morality: Vito finds Luca Brasi, a monster and sadist who would be at home in Hitler’s SS, useful as a bodyguard and enforcer, therefore saves him from prosecution for child murder; meantime, Sonny must kill a boyhood friend to protect his own honor among evildoers.

Not a book I’d take to my hammock. But if you’ve been craving blood and violence in your reading, here is your fix.

CONFESSIONS OF A SCARY MOMMY

By Jill Smokler. Simon & Schuster. 168 pages. $15

By Nona Nelson

nona.nelson@roanoke.com

There is a lot about being a mother that is gratifying; there is also a huge portion of the job description that is genuinely scary. The little bundles of endless energy and perpetual need don’t come with any kind of user’s manual.

Even if you are lucky enough to navigate your little darlings all the way to adulthood (count me in that crowd) you find it’s a job from which there is never a retirement. Motherhood is a lifetime commitment.

For those women in the midst of raising youngsters, or those of us who managed to survive that challenge only slightly battle-scarred, there are many head-nodding, “oh-hell-yes” moments to be found in Baltimore-area blogger Jill Smokler’s book, “Confessions of a Scary Mommy.”

The book is part memoir and part tidbits gleaned from Smokler’s blog, www.scarymommy.com, where she features an anonymous confessional where readers can post their deepest, and sometimes darkest, revelations about family life — a postsecret.com for the carpool-lane-and-diaper-bag set.

Smokler is a talented writer who can summarize the joys and pitfalls of motherhood in a funny, frank and unsentimental voice. This is a woman who loves her children and husband but maintains a realistic perspective on the frustrations of family life.

While Smokler’s text provides smooth transitions from chapter to chapter — she’s done a better job than most of converting her blog to a cohesive story — it’s the confessions from her blog readers that will likely resonate with most moms.

Some are relatable and funny:

“I had to Photoshop a family picture together since nobody was capable of smiling at once.”

“I ate a jar of Nutella a month while pregnant. Okay, a jar a week. Okay, okay, a day. A jar of Nutella a day. I’ve never admitted that before.”

“I’m still trying to lose the baby weight from my twins. They are juniors in high school.”

Some are passive-aggressive and others are openly aggressive:

“I kiss my young teenager goodbye in the morning as she leaves for school, rising above the hormone-fueled snarling and histrionics. Then I close the front door and flip her off, with both hands.”

“I named my son after a boy I had a crush on in high school…my husband has no idea he has a namesake.”

“‘Sleep when the baby sleeps’ is the most irritating, useless thing ever said to a new mother. I’m going to slap the next woman who says it. Because I know she didn’t sleep when the baby slept. No one does.”

Some are heartbreaking:

“I’m terrified that I won’t love the baby I’m carrying as much as my five-year-old.”

“I wish I could be happy for my best friend’s amazing children, happy marriage and perfect life, but I am too busy seething with jealousy.”

“Sometimes I simply can’t stand my son…he reminds me so much of my ex I could cry.”

While this book’s target audience is mothers, it would be enlightening reading for every other literate family member. It lets them in on the biggest secret of all. As devoted, selfless and loving as she is, Mom craves alone time:

“I lock myself in the bathroom and act like I have diarrhea, but really I am sitting in there reading magazines and playing on my phone. My husband keeps pestering me to see a gastroenterologist.”

“I go out with my girlfriends every other Thursday night. I swear it’s the only thing that keeps me sane all week.”

“I called in sick for work, took the kids to day care, saw an afternoon movie, and got my nails done. Best day EVER.”

INDOMITABLE WILL: LBJ in the Presidency 

By Mark K. Updegrove. Crown.

384 pages. $27

Reviewed by Michael L. Ramsey

MICHAEL L. RAMSEY is president of the Roanoke Public Library Foundation.

Lyndon Johnson became president following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — not the best of beginnings. Johnson began his time in the White House by pledging to finish the Kennedy agenda. Johnson left the presidency having accomplished much more.

In his aptly titled “Indomitable Will,” Mark Updegrove provides insight into Johnson’s ability to accomplish a sea change in the way America would work to address issues affecting its underprivileged and disenfranchised citizens.

Updegrove is director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, and his position might raise an eyebrow or two among skeptical readers. However, Updegrove has wisely limited his writing to key transitional passages that connect memories and opinions of people who worked with and against Johnson.

This chorus of voices familiar to Americans develops a rich thematic harmony and offers prose with a dynamic like that of an oratorio by Handel.

We encounter Lyndon Johnson at the moment he becomes president — a dark time for America. Kennedy had been assassinated, and Johnson had the unenviable task of getting the country to “soldier on.” Johnson managed that difficult transition well by positioning himself as the man with the responsibility of fulfilling Kennedy’s agenda.

As Johnson evolved from caretaker of the Kennedy legacy to a president with his own agenda, we see a man with a grand vision for a country of vast wealth. His comprehensive legislative package included the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Open Housing, Higher Education, Primary and Secondary Education — an ambitious legislative package that brought relief and hope to a host of Americans.

Johnson’s vision was accompanied by his experience in Congress, where he had developed the skills necessary to get things done.

There is an exploration of the “Johnson Treatment” from several viewpoints, allowing the reader an opportunity to develop a better understanding of Johnson’s trademark method of persuasion.

The Great Society legislative package might have been Johnson’s legacy except for his having embraced the Vietnam War. He embraced the goal of stopping the spread of communism, but his reluctance to fight an all-out war against North Vietnam led the country into a political and military quagmire that so dominated his presidency that he chose not to seek re-election in 1968.

While the war overshadowed all he had accomplished, it didn’t eclipse those accomplishments.

Near the end of his life, having seen the wealthy and powerful fill the funeral of Louisiana Rep. Hale Boggs, Lyndon said to his wife, Lady Bird: “I don’t want just the people coming in their private jets; I want the men in their pickup trucks and the women whose skirts hang below their dresses.”

As the president’s body lay in state a few months later, a “black man well into his eighties, hobbling on a cane, insisted on climbing the hall’s grand marble staircase to bid farewell to ‘the man who gave me my freedom.’ ”

Special assistant to the president Tom Johnson: “He would be very unhappy that there is extreme divisiveness [today] between the political parties and many other factions in our society. He genuinely believed in the biblical expression ‘Come let us reason together.’ He was a master of bringing … different sides together.”

White House press secretary Bill Moyers:  “Why did a man as flawed as any vessel that was ever made rouse a nation to reach beyond itself in such a time?”

Updegrove has fashioned an overview of the Johnson presidency that provides an account of his accomplishments and failures that is as close as possible to being objective.

One last anecdote from the book to illustrate the essence of Lyndon Johnson and the essence of American politics: Idaho Sen. Frank Church had begun criticizing Johnson in print. At a reception at the White House, Johnson asked Church where he got his information; Church said he got it from [newspaper columnist] Walter Lippmann.

Johnson to Church: “Well, the next time you need a dam in Idaho, you just ask Walter Lippmann.”

PEACE, THEY SAY:

A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World

By Jay Nordlinger. Encounter Books.

476 pages. $27.99

Reviewed by A. Sidney Barritt

SIDNEY BARRITT is a Roanoke physician.

Alfred Nobel, born in Sweden, became a prodigiously productive inventor, eventually holding more than 350 patents. His most famous involved taming nitroglycerin, putting it in a tube and calling it dynamite. From his patents and business ventures, he became wealthy and used his estate to fund a trust after his death to award prizes for various accomplishments in the arts and sciences and, most famously and perhaps most notoriously, for peace.

The Swedish Academy selects the recipients for arts and sciences, but the Norwegian parliament bestows the prize for peace, another mini-story in its own right.

Jay Nordlinger treats us to a complete parade of the Peace Laureates beginning with Henry Dunant and Frederic Passy in 1901 up to last year’s trio of Leymah Gbowee, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman. How many of those names do you recognize? He includes a synopsis of the careers of those whom history has largely ignored and spends more time on those recipients whom we know well.

There is no argument about Mother Teresa’s award. None about Albert Schweitzer’s either. The Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders were sound and popular choices. George C. Marshall, winner in 1953, was a career military man but still an excellent choice for peace for his post-war work. Teddy Roosevelt? That choice was arguable.

In 1973, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were chosen — clearly controversial. Yasser Arafat in 1994! Surely you jest! President Obama in 2010? While he may eventually deserve the prize, his acceptance speech hints that he was embarrassed to receive it at this point.

And, there is a brief nod in the direction of those missing from the parade of laureates, notably Raoul Wallenberg and Mahatma Gandhi.

This is an interesting and informative piece of work. Most of us will have strong opinions about the winners we know. Nordlinger certainly does; he is an editor at National Review, so one can anticipate where his sentiments lie.

Saturday:

GREEN VALLEY BOOK FAIR

Saturday, May 12th thru Memorial Day, Monday, May 28th, 2012

Directions: The Green Valley Book Fair is located between Harrisonburg & Staunton, VA. Take I-81 to Exit 240; turn east off the exit & follow the signs

During these scheduled dates, we’ll be open from 9 AM to 7 PM daily (including Sundays & Memorial Day).

Book Fair Preview: Preview a selection of new arrivals at our Book Fair Preview page: http://www.gobookfair.com/previewpage.html

Barnes & Noble Mother’s Day Storytime: Are You My Mother

Where: Christiansburg Barnes & Noble, 110 Conston Ave, Christiansburg, (540) 381-4923
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Age: Just for kids

Description: Join us for a special Mother’s Day storytime. We’ll be reading Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman. Children are encouraged to stay after the reading to participate in a storytime themed craft. Storytime is a great time to sign up for our free Kids’ Club. Benefits include special discount offers, reward points on kids’ book purchases and a free cupcake on your child’s birthday. Ask a bookseller for more details while you’re in the store.

Barnes & Noble Storytime: Little Blue Truck

Where: Christiansburg Barnes & Noble, 110 Conston Ave, Christiansburg, (540) 381-4923
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Age: Just for kids

Description: Join us for fun in the Kid’s department. We’ll be reading Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle with illustrations by Jill McElmurry. Children are encouraged to stay after the reading to participate in a storytime themed craft. Storytime is a great time to sign up for our free Kids’ Club. Benefits include special discount offers, reward points on kids’ book purchases and a free cupcake on your child’s birthday. Ask a bookseller for more details while you’re in the store.

Barnes and Noble Meet the Author

Where: Barnes and Noble Christiansburg, 110 Conston Ave, Christiansburg, Va, (540) 381-4923
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Age: Just for kids

Description: Meet Christopher Harrison author of “From Championship Wrestler to Road Rage Defendant”

Blue Ridge Literacy Tutor Training

Where: Downtown Main library, 706 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke, (540) 265-9339
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Age: All Ages
Cost/Other info: Training is free, however there is a fee for textbook used in training.

Description: Help someone with their literacy skills! No foreign language or teaching background required. Work one on one in public libraries with an adult student.

Friends of the Bedford Public Library Concert

Where: Bedford Central Library, 321 N. Bedford St., Bedford, (540) 586-8911
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 7:30 PM -
Age: All Ages
Cost/Other info: $10

Description: Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkins will perform Americana and folk music.

Sunday:

Author Michael Abraham

Where: Christiansburg Public Library, Sheltman Street, Christiansburg,  (540) 392-1119
Date: Sunday, May 13, 2012
Time: 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Age: All Ages
Cost/Other info: Author’s books will be available for purchase.

Description: Michael Abraham will be speaking about his latest book “Providence, VA” as well as his earlier books, along with the process he has used to research and write them.

Blue Ridge Literacy Tutor Training

Where: Downtown Main library, 706 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke,  (540) 265-9339
Date: Sunday, May 13, 2012
Time: 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Age: All Ages
Cost/Other info: Training is free, however there is a fee for textbook used in training.

Description: Help someone with their literacy skills! No foreign language or teaching background required. Work one on one in public libraries with an adult student.

Also, how does hype play into your response to a book? For example, if you heard a book was a wonderful love story and in your reading you find the love story not to your liking does that ruin the book for you? If you had started the book expecting something different would you have liked it better?

These are the questions going through my head as I reflect on the last book I just read. If you saw the post from last week where I was debating finishing a book, well I finished it and will write about my opinion. But before I do, I’m analyzing my thoughts to determine if I’m being to harsh on the book. Would love your input!

As many books as I’m sure were read to me in elementary school ”Where the Wild Things Are” is the only book I remember in detail. 

It coincided with starting a new school. This is one of the first times I was in the library. My class sat cross legged on the orange carpet squeezing around and in-between the ends of the bookcases. The librarian sat in a desk chair and read  slowly holding up the book so we could see the pictures. I remember being scared of  the wild things yet loving them at the same time. Later we watched a movie (which was more slide show than animation) solidifying it as one of my all-time favorite books.

When my daughter was an infant, I started purchasing books to fill her bookcase. This was first on on the shelf.

Are you a Maurice Sendak fan? Please share your memories of the beloved author.

nona.nelson@roanoke.com

It’s springtime in Paris and it seems that publishers are anxious to remind this poorly traveled book reviewer that she has yet to experience it firsthand. Three books about life and travel in France have landed on my desk since late April, inspiring me to dig out my barely used passport, make excellent use of the English-to-French translate function on Google and spend hours daydreaming about jumping on the next plane bound for Charles De Gaulle.

First on my reading list was a memoir, “Paris I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” by Rosecrans Baldwin about the 18 months that he spent living in the City of Light, toiling for an advertising agency by day while working on his first novel by night.

Baldwin is lifelong Francophile who did not hesitate to accept a job as a copywriter in Paris despite barely speaking the language and never having worked in advertising. In 2007, he and his wife Rachel sold their belongings in Brooklyn, packed 10 duffle bags and began a life of sweat-inducing anxiety caused by the constant construction around their apartment, the high cost of living and the crude, politically incorrect coworkers at Baldwin’s office.

The biggest impediment they encountered in Paris was the couple’s lack of language skills. While polite with tourists, it seems the French have little patience for resident foreigners who cannot converse in their native tongue. It also seems they harbor great disdain for Canadians who speak fluent French with a twangy accent.

Baldwin retells his expat experience in a series of essays that gives an American perspective on life as a Parisian. The French are hard workers, even if they are not very results-oriented. Baldwin’s first assignment was to create brochures about infant nutrition and, despite putting in long hours on research and writing, when the deadline for six completed pamphlets arrives, the first one was still unfinished. Many of his pitches to clients, holders of accounts that are worth millions of euros to his firm, were rejected out of hand. His bosses didn’t seem to mind.

Lunch is an art form in France and they even eat American fast food in courses that can take more than an hour to complete — first course is McNuggets, followed by fries, a burger or two, salad and finally, a melted fudge sundae. Much time is spent debating President Nicolas Sarkozy’s divorce, his jogging and his third marriage to Italian supermodel Carla Bruni. Bureaucracy, Baldwin maintains, is France’s number one sport — he was ticketed for using a metro pass without the proper French-issued identification card, even though no one asked for identification when he purchased the metro pass.

Baldwin is a vibrant and keenly observant writer, and this charming diary is both tender and funny. He writes about what was often a frustrating experience without ever becoming whiny or judgmental. The book gives readers an inside view of a complex society and presents a realistic appreciation of the city for both its beauty and its flaws. My takeaway from this often hilarious, often poignant tale is that is Paris can be a wonderful experience for an extended visit, even if it may not be the ideal place for the typical American to live and work.

A long visit is exactly what travel writer and artist Vivian Swift enjoyed on her 28-day honeymoon trek through France with her husband, James Stone, in 2005. She chronicled their journey in her book “Le Road Trip: A Traveler’s Journal of Love and France.”

The couple visited Paris, Normandy and Bordeaux with many stops along the way. Swift starts her illustrated book making clear what it will not do: provide hotel phone numbers and addresses, recommendations for fine dining, nor a game plan for seeing all the typical tourist sites. Swift aims to inspire the reader to find his or her own French adventure, and indeed she does this by encasing solid travel tips in whimsical anecdotes placed among vivid watercolors.

“Every road trip has its ups and downs, just like a love affair or the stock market,” Swift writes. “But more like a love affair.”

“Le Road Trip” is like a delightful picture postcard loaded with practical advice for navigating France (or almost anywhere, actually): Expect that there will be tension even among the most devoted and loving couple while road-tripping. Plan to pack for a month in one carry-on size roller bag. Beware of unexpected holidays that can leave a traveler stranded without mass transit or access to a bank.

It can take up to three hours waiting in line to spend only a few seconds gazing at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Decide accordingly whether it’s really worth the investment of your vacation time. (My answer would be no.)

Swift shares a touching story of a Scottish immigrant (the father of her neighbor in Long Island) who gave his life as a U.S. soldier fighting the Nazis on June 16, 1944. While the lights of Paris and the vineyards of Bordeaux are something I definitely want to see, a visit to Normandy is a tribute I now feel compelled to make.

While “Le Road Trip” awakened my vagabond heart and made me restless to wander, “The French Dog” appealed to my other loves in life: dogs and photography. This gorgeous book from photographer Rachel Hale is loaded with pictures of a variety of pooches (only one poodle) in French castles, cottages and countryside.

The photos are stunning: some with crisp definition and precise composition, where the lens truly captures the soul of the dog. Others are soft and fuzzy as fur, reminding me of an Impressionist-era painting.

My only gripe is in the text, in which Hale waxes poetic about the nobility and unparalleled excellence of French dogs, reminding me of the thesis of a recent best-seller that promoted French children as the very model of good manners and proper behavior. While I am sure Hale encountered many well-behaved dogs in her travels through France, I think every country has its share of gentle and sweet — as well as mean and cranky — canines. Somehow I doubt the French have cornered the market on great dogs.

Now pardon me while I pack my camera bag, start perusing the Internet for bargain fares, and dive into my next book, “French for Dummies.”