WE HAVE PREMISES!!!!!

Well, the good news has been confirmed.

After 6 years of existence and 4 years with a premises dossier at City Hall, we have finally be given permanent premises!!!!! Very near the town center on rue Lakanal, quite big (76 sq metres), will need a bit of sprucing up but we should open at the beginning of September which will give us time to get things organised. We have books all over the place in various cellars and attics, some belong to the library proper and others will go into a Book Sale which we shall hold on opening day. Of course this calls for a celebration and we shall be drinking fizzy at the AGM on 11th June (open to paid up members) before the al fresco lunch in one of our member's lovely garden. If you feel like joining up now, send an email to foal@dbmail.com and you will be eligible for the party too!

 

NEWSLETTER March 2016

NEWSLETTER MARCH 2016

 

I can'r seem to be able to copy the images that are in the Newsletter, the one that should be in this space is of a couple of champagne glasses. This explains the first sentence of the text below

 

I expect you are surprised to see this festive image but drinking some fizzy might soon be a reality. Indeed, I was informed this week that the Premises Commission had held its meeting and that Foal’s dossier had been given an « avis favorable » by the Mayor. The next step is for them to find suitable premises but it does look as if we are well on the way to getting something permanent. If and when this happens, which might be in the not so distant future, Foal members will be drinking fizzy and celebrating. My secret hope is that this might intervene before the AGM and the summer party which is due to take place on 11th June (I hope the date is already in your agendas) so that we can do our celebrating then.

The new books will be in the library tomorrow (23rd March), another excellent selection as you have already seen.

 

This is a very short newsletter, I just wanted to share the good news.

 

There was another image here of some party hats

  

New Catalogues !!!

The new catalogue (Title Alphabetical Order) is now online. To download it, just click Here.
Also available : Author Alphabetical Order Here.

Click on “télécharger vers navigateur” (download to browser) and then on “ouvrir”

NEW BOOKS MARCH 2016

FOAL BOOK ORDER MARCH 2016

NON FICTION

The Outsider : My life in intrigue                                      Frederick Forsyth

By the author of The Day of the Jackal, the story of a happy boy who wanted an adventurous life and got it

Stop the Clocks ** see poem below                                   Joan Bakewell

A memoir  which is not Bakewell’s goodbye. She isn’t ill; hopefully, she has more time yet. But it is, perhaps, a preparation for goodbye, being a kind of reckoning up, a wry analysis of the world she will leave behind

Gimson’s Kings and Queens                                                          Andrew Gimson

An entertaining romp through England’s monarchs

How the French think : an affectionate portrait of an intellectual people by   Sudhir Hasareesingh

In this nation of arrogant intellectuals, even the beggars make eloquent speeches – but why are the French like this ? Why do they think differently ? The French like to construct a theory and then use it to explain facts ; the British and others like to examine the facts and then construct theories.

FICTION

The Man without a shadow                                                           Joyce Carol Oates

Psychological thriller, a meloncholic examination of the ways in which we define ourselves in terms of our work and relationships.

The Improbability of Love                                                 Hannah Rothschild

A novel set in the art world. « I don’t know why everyone doesn’t set their novel in the art world » Ms Rothschild said. « It’s got everything : extremes of wealth, goodies, baddies, the intangibility of beauty and desire, history, scholorship.. you name it »

The Neopolitan Novels                                                        Elsa Ferrante (4 volumes)

The series follows the lives of two perceptive and intelligent girls, Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo, from childhood to adulthood as they try to create lives for themselves amidst the violent and stultifying culture of their home– a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples

Exposure                                                                              Helen Dunmore

A fine addition to the shelves of cold war literature, an unconventional spy thriller

Numero Zero                                                                       Umberto Eco

This wry, witty novel about the skulduggery of the Clean Hands scandal

The Noise of Time                                                               Julian Barnes

A fictional biography, Barnes gives himself the narratorial freedom to enter the workings of the composer’s (Shostakovich) mind while also offering outside context for the reader.

Blood, Salt, Water                                                               Denise Mina

Her 12th book and Denise Mina is showing no signs of losing her power to draw readers into a shadowy world of crime.

Rogue Lawyer                                                                     John Grisham

Grisham is debuting what looks to be a series featuring a so-called street lawyer named Sebastian Rudd. Rogue Laywer is so cleverly plotted, it could be used as a how-to manual in fiction-writing courses

The Moor’s Account                                                                       Laila Lalami

Long listed for the Man Booker 2015 The story of an ill-fated expedition to the New World which sets of in 1527. The reader is gripped as the expedition lurches from disaster to disaster

High Dive                                                                             Jonathan Lee

A hauntingly atmospheric tale of the 1980s. A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, as it hosted senior delegates at the Tory party conference. This shocking event becomes the focus of Jonathan Lee’s third novel, though its surprises are truly unexpected

Broken Harbour                                                                 Tana French

A tale about the different facets of obsession and insanity. Tana French is a very popular author at the moment

**The  title of Joan Bakewell’s memoir probably comes from the first line of a W H Auden poem which I find very moving and which was recited in the burial scene in 4 Weddings and a Funeral

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled  drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

 

 

 

Book Quiz 2016 The winning team

BOOK QUIZ 2016

Another successful book quiz with a good turnout. the questions were rather more light-hearted this year and we had a lot of fun. Thanks to Cormac for all his work on the editing. Philippe Marchand's organisation was brilliant as usual and Phil Claringbull excellent as usual as quiz master. Thanks to all the other helpers. We were serenaded by Lawrence McQuire while we were enjoying a post quiz glass of wine. Our friend Maggie who headed a team was her ebullient self (see photo)

Newsletter January 2016

NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2016

 

Let me wish you all a Happy New Year again, I hope you enjoyed the Christmas break and that you have made all kinds of good resolutions !

 

Christmas Party The party was a great success, many, many thanks to Caroline and Michel Grasset for enabling us to hold the party at their lovely house. The food and drink were plentiful, the raffle (with so many prizes) a success too. We made 300 euros which goes immediately to the book fund.

 

Book Quiz  Coming up soon, 5th of February at the usual venue ; Espace Martin Luther King 27 Bd Louis Blanc. The doors open at 5.30pm which will give you time to have a glass in hand before the start of the quiz at 6.15. Try and come on time so that we can start on time and have time left over for a bit of socialising after the quiz.

Please put 5 euros per person into a discrete envelope and hand it in on arrival  (the money goes towards expenses for the drinks and nibbles, anything left over goes into the book budget).

 

Party and AGM  11th June for FOAL members It’s a bit early to talk about this but you can pencil the date into your diaries (yes, we are having a party again thanks to our friend Françoise Sorro who is kindly letting us hold it in her lovely garden)

 

Dues: Are dribbling in, you still have 15 days before the end of January to send a cheque (25 euros or 40 if you wish to be a benefactor) made out to Foal to : Mike Davison 13 rue de la Paix 34130 St Aunès. We have harmonised dues so that they are now paid at the beginning of the calendar year