French Resistance – a nation of #bookshops against the world

Posted on April 16, 2015 by emmacalin

A book shop – a true symbol of modern French Resistance

In France there are book shops. In England a few still cling on but they are hard to find. Whilst the French have embraced much of the out of town retail centre/shopping mall culture, the book trade is still in independent hands. The sale of books online lags far behind the UK and The USA. A few Parisian sophistogauls possess Kindles but I suspect even they read e books about propagating chic organic cucumbers in their attics.

Eventually I plucked up courage to enter my local “librairie”. After all, I am Anglaise and so are my books. I imagined they would not be impressed by some Femme Franglaise swaggering in to anounce myself as the only International Number One Best Seller of female fantasm in the village. So – I took in some respectable material – my series of children’s books and of course some serious poetry which I publish at Gallo-Romano media. I met a wonderful French lady.

“No one buys poetry or children’s books,” she said, selecting instead the crime soaked oversexed romance which is my more worldly genre. “There are many English in the region – this is the stuff they like,” she assured me. Obviously she knows what appeals to the daring fantasy follicles of the Anglo Saxon lady.

The bookshop “Le Passage des Heures” is a little marvel. Books on The Forgotten Vegetables of France lounge casually on the shoulder of Emile Zola. The place is adorable for a book groupie like me. We talked about the price of my books. I mentioned Amazon. A Gallic eyebrow shot out the roof of the building. Seemingly, the affairs of Amazon are of no interest.

“We resist!” said the lady.

A Corner of a foreign fenetre that is whatever Emma

Indeed they do. France is still a very foreign country – no matter where you are from. Being French is a talent and I will never be equal to it. Generally they understand how awful it is to be foreign and are very kind. As a result there is a bookshop in Saint Savinien with my books in the window. Merci beaucoup. Eat your heart out Waterstone’s.

Emma Thinx: Foreign – a land of fear, spice and possibility.

Flowery Prose

Posted on August 6, 2014 by emmacalin

Sure heats up the deep frying pagan in me. My Phoebus has sent me an earthly orgy of icons to contemplate

I’m at home in St. Savinien sur Charente never far from the Angelus bells of the eponymous eglise. Oooh – I do love a bit of the old Eponomy. I think there might be a publishing platform of the same name. They often invite me to do things. I’m not sure what and I’ve never gotten round to doing it.

It’s like a landscape painting at every moment of the river

I’m just putting up a few pictures of my beautiful town. The air is heavy with the perfume of flowers. The swallows swoop and swerve back and forth along the surface of the flowing emerald Charente river. After a shower the air is warm and saturated with that deep lust of kisses, wine, fertile musk of passion and the warm plop plop spatter of cow dung. It’s a damask bath of purple prose sprinkled with succulent seed laden fruit and wasps. You know – one day I’m gonna stick all this stuff in a saucy novel and send it to Eponomy.

Alleys of the world – ALLEZ!

Even a stroll to the local boulangerie takes me along an alley like many others. It is all so close to paradise that I get that urge to try out some original sin. The closest I’ve got so far is nibbling the newly baked bread before I get it home although once I scoffed two of the pains au chocolat. I told the family they’d only had two left. Well, they did when I’d subtracted two.

Emma Thinx: To flower is mortality. To bloom is mentality.

Winter Postcard From Saint Savinien Sur Charente

Posted on February 16, 2014 by emmacalin

Thank you, thank you – I am alive and I can see.

I’m home in France. My dear dear Charente Maritime – I love you. You are always here waiting for me. The neighbours kiss me. Your beauty washes down through stone into river and sky. I am so lucky in my life to be here with eyes to see and a mind to abandon to you. Truly I am in awe of this place. It is a watercolour picture of the heart with a smile of church bells.

Winter sun , your fine pen of stark beauty draws a summer in my heart

To infinity and beyond those French films of avenues and kisses.

I am pausing today from the ding dong of Shannon’s Law and blog tours. I took my camera for a walk to try to fix the atmospheric light of this winter’s day. Spring is nibbling at the edges now.The bare trees still expose that truth of Nature’s skeleton. As any of my readers will know, I never hold back in talking openly about love and its worldly hit-man, sex. In a way, Winter is the truth of enduring love. It is the true uncompromising hardcore when all the dressing up, tease, promise and make-up is done. If I’m being OTT Emma let me know. Here are a few shots I wanted to share.

Beauty on this scale is emotional. I’m not one of those posh Wordsworth guys who can express the intellectual power of Nature’s beauty. Even so, I’m a human bean planted in this soil to grow.

Emma thinx: Life grows. You are life. Life is you.

Saint Savinien Sur Charente – My Home.

Posted on August 31, 2013 by emmacalin

A beauty of still water reflects a calm of timeless stone.

My problem in France is that I’m an Anglo-Saxon. I’m a pillager, not a villager. Every time I launch a raid on the Super U supermarché there’s more and more plunder. Fruits of the sea lead on to Charentais melons, Boeuf Bourginon, sorbet-citron and cheese. Soft creamy morning light caresses while deep warm evening wines seduce. Oh if only I were a famous travel writer I could claim it was all research! As it is I’m a penniless recidivist hedonist bloggerist with no excuses.

Shine a light and I will follow

A couple of nights ago I trotted out with my camera to capture something of the mellow soft late summer joy of my town. Really, it’s not a place – it’s an emotion, a passion and the thrill of calm. I took some shots. Voila!

Soon my sense of guilt and over indulgence gave way to philosophical reflection. I have been working on a novel. My man

You rays me up……….

has been working on the leaking roof. Neighbours have stopped and shrugged at the unpredictability of roof tiles, love and fate. Toasts have been drunk to all of them. The air is feathered with swallows. The raised brow of autumn patiently indulges the unacknowledged end of youth. Still the noon is warm. I close my eyes and bask with the lizards.