Isabel Allende...

I've dreamed with La Casa de los Espíritus, I've cried with Paula, I've enjoyed with Afrodita and felt moved by Hija de la Fortuna... For years, I've never missed one of her novels!

Then I started spending more time in Europe, time flew by... But I've never forgotten her.

That's why, two weeks ago, when some French friends of mine suggested we organize a dinner in her honor at home (for she was in Paris, after having spent some time in Denmark, where she was given an award), I felt thrilled. Of course, I accepted their proposal with great joy.

And the truth is she is a charming lady, intelligent, fun, very humble. A true pleasure. With her husband, the writer William Gordon, they make a lovely couple. 

She brought me a box of chocolates from San Francisco, the city where she lives, which she herself specially chose. I tried one, with chili and cinnamon! Perfect for such a spicy woman!

We were all charmed by her and, before leaving, she greeted each one with a kiss...

Autumn in Paris.

First week of November... and such vivid sensations...

To begin with, the beautiful colours of Autumn, with its yellows, its reds and oranges in every tree of the many Parks of the City: the Parc Monceau, the Butte de Montmartre or even the Jardin de Luxembourg, with its many ghosts of past artists throughout the centuries. Writers as Gérard de Nerval, poets as Baudelaire, paintors as Modigliani or even Françoise Sagan, who lived in front, spent time at le Jardin. Such a leyend, really.

But around these days you can also see some very premature Christmas decorations and the very first sales at the big department stores such as Galeries Lafayette or Printemps. We are on the 8 of November... Sales already? Even offering 50% off? Some labels try to resist them, but most of them play by the new rules of the market. Everything better than getting stuck with merchandise!

Sales at Printemps!

The recession here has been strong and you can feel it everywhere. For example, restaurants around town have reduced the TVA tax from 16,90% to 5,50% and have even cut off some prices on the menu to get some clients back to dinning out. You can also see the crisis on the many no-funds checks than have been given by so many desperate pleople... Never has there been so many as this year!

But appart from all this, the first weeks of November are famous in France because of the many Literature prizes being given out these days. The most wanted one is the Prix Goncourt, the dream of every writer, which this year was awarded to Marie NDiaye, quite a surprise for women seldom get this prize. In fact, the last one to receive it was Paule Constat in 1998. There's also the Prix Renaudot, which was given to Frédéric Beigbeder, for "Un roman francais", my very favourite one! The Prix Flore, organized by the legendary Café Flore, was awarded to Simon Liberati, while Jean Marie Blas de Robles took home the Prix Medicis. To be announced are the winners of the Prix Fémina and the Prix Interaillé...

... And so, after that, another season would have gone by...

My favourite, Frédéric Beigbeder

The Princess and the President

In France, on Thursdays the most popular magazines here hit the newstands.
And today, the covers of the top ones (Paris-Match, Le Point, Le Nouvelle Observateur), share a same topic: the new book, to be on sale tomorrow, "La Princesse et le Président," written by Valéry Giscard d'Estang, former President of France.
It's been a week already since the whole French and English press started making assumptions on the subject of this novel which tells an impossible love story between Jacques-Henry Lambertye, President of France, and Lady Patricia, Princess of Cardiff, beautiful, blond and unhappily married to the Prince of Wales.
Hello? Does this ring a bell?
Well, as it happens, in the Nineties (more precisely in 1994), Lady Diana had a meeting with VGE (as he is known here), who had been President of France between 1974 and 1981. However, no-one could imagine that they actually had a thing going on! He was 65 by then and she a little over 30...
He wasn´t much of a heartbreaker, but quite a charmer... at least, that's what I'm being told.
Anyway, this is what's in everyone's conversation here in Paris.
VGE gave only one interview: to Le Point. There he says that it was Lady Diana's idea to create a love story with two characters just like them and that he, to honour her memory, decided to finally do so last year.
Of course, he denies a true romance but many believe he likes playing with the mistery and this, of course, will increase the sales of his book and maybe produce some sour relationships with the English.
Is it the outcome of the imagination of an old man?
Or really a love story with a tragic end?
I guess we'll never know for sure...

Millennium Saga

I have just finished the third of the Millennium Saga books... More than 1500 pages that had me breathless for weeks and now that it is finally over... I feel like crying... There won't be a fourth book!

In 2004, Stieg Larsson handed out the manuscripts to his editor and before they were even published, he died of a stroke! He was only 50 years old!

He left us, though, two characters that are now part of Literature mythology: Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, such a fragile and also strong woman! You end up loving her...

The books also create a tremendous curiosity to go visit that modern, complicated, different Sweden. With the success of the Saga, in Europe there are new tours inviting fans to visit the key places where Larsson's characters live and move.

How can I describe the Millennium Saga to you with its three long books?

Well, it's a thriller, a dark novel but, above all, a romantic love story-

The movie version of the first book will premiere soon.

I'll tell you about it when I see it.