SPECIAL
COMÉDIE DU LIVRE NEWSLETTER
As the photos will show, FOAL was present at the Comédie du
Livre, and after a few snaffles, we got the computers up and running and the
public was able to come and listen to selected recordings of authors and poets
from the BBC archives. The stand was manned by Foal volunteers, to whom many
thanks. The CDs are now available for loan at the library. We actually didn’t
have a lot of people because the part of the stand we occupied was rather
hidden away, but we managed to hand out quite a few flyers and hope this will
eventually bring in some new members.
We had two very successful breakfast meetings with two
British authors, Kate Summerscale and Roger John Ellory. The latter, who we
have discovered thanks to the books that the Mairie bought for us (we have 6 of
his in the library now), is an extraordinarily pleasant guy and we had a great
talk with him. Those of us who have read one or more of his books are really
smitten with the quality of the writing and the stories he tells. I told him we
were going to set up a Fan Club ! He signed three of his books for Foal
including his latest offering, « A Dark and Broken Heart » which came
out two days ago (we can’t get more recent than that !) Kate Summerscale
signed « Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace », also her latest publication. We
took advantage of the fact that authors were signing books during the event to
get a signed copy of David Lodge’s latest, « A Man of Parts » and of Marina
Lewycka’s « Various pets alive and dead ». She wrote a book that has become
quite a cult, « A Short History of tractors
in Ukraine ».
Kate Summerscale signing her book
For those of you who haven’t yet put the date in your
diaries, don’t forget the Annual General Meeting on 15th June at the Martin
Luther King venue at 6pm. E-mail your presence to foal@dbmail.com so that we can provide enough
food and drink !
