Books by Belgians or Based In Brussels… Can you Help? |

Can anyone help out this bibliophile? And if not, you might find the comments on his post useful - there's a good list there!

Books by Belgians or Based In Brussels… Can you Help? |: Books by Belgians or Based In Brussels… Can you Help?
If all goes to plan I will be off to Brussels at the end of next week on a mini break (for work, so not so much of a break actually). That sounds more leisurely than it actually is as the itinerary will be quite full, but there is some travelling around and ‘time of my own’ to go and explore, wander the streets and find little cafes to sit and read in. And that’s where I wanted your help. What books by Belgians or based in Brussels could you recommend?

I’ve got the obligatory travel/city guides from the library…

…But I do like to have some fiction from the country with me too. Some crime might be good, so could some quirky literature, or indeed a classic. In fact any suggestions are welcome. I will be taking Daphne Du Maurier with me but have room for one more book. Can you advise?


'via Blog this'

Oh to be in a foxhole...

The more observant of you, or at least those of you who have read the post I wrote in the middle of the night, will know that I have just started a wordpress blog for professional purposes. (Don't worry, this one is continuing, precisely so I can write the kind of thing I'm about to write.) Wordpress is great in lots of ways - and awful in others - but one of the things I love is its daily writing prompt. They don't call it that, but that's what it is.

I hadn't decided I was definitely going to do it, but today's question was too good not to respond to.

What person, real or fictional, living or dead, would you want to share a foxhole with if you were on a battlefield?

I know you all know who I'm going to say, so I'm not really sure there's a lot of point to this blogpost at all, except that I haven't spoken to anyone all day apart from the woman ahead of me in the queue at Delhaize, and this feels like contact with the outside world.

So, anyway. Yes, Josh Lyman. But then I thought, yes, but Josh Lyman tends to freak out a bit in these kinds of situations. Plus, you know, ideal opportunity for a romantic moment, which would be wrong, since Josh belongs to Donna. (People about to accuse me of a spoiler, please note I'm not saying he ends up with Donna. I'm just giving my opinion here.)

So, and maybe this is just because I have just watched Somebody's going to jail, or maybe it's because I've met him in person and know that he would make a pleasant visual distraction from the fighting, or maybe it's the writer thing, or the caring sensitive thing, but maybe I would go for Sam Seaborn instead. Also, I don't know - Donna is always looking after Josh. In that situation I'd want someone to look after me, not the other way round. So maybe Sam is a better bet. Especially given the whole potential for romance thing.

Stepping away from the world of fiction (or, er, not), I think we all know who I'd actually go for. Someone a lot like Josh Lyman, only not married to Donna. (Again, I'm not saying Josh and Donna get married. So we're clear.) Someone who looks a lot like Josh Lyman, whose interesting conversation (and dimples) would no doubt distract me from the whole foxhole situation. And since I've seen him handle a gun, I'd feel safe, too.

How about you? Whom would you pick?

A new muse, peut-être?

... and just like that, Brad Pitt is suddenly in my life.

Now, don't get me wrong, he's very attractive and all, but I honestly hadn't given him any thought for oh, months? years? (Except, that is, for those few occasions when people in my writing group - from a young married guy to a elegant senior citizen who was once married to an Ambassador - have questioned my decision to give the name Brad to the hero of Inevitable. "I don't know," said Ann. "It just reminds of that film star, you know? It's not a name for a diplomat. He should at least be Bradley." They don't realise, of course, that he's named after an entirely different Brad - who, in fact, is a Bradley - and that his name is therefore immutable. Anyway, I digress.)

I've had the oddest of weeks. (Don't worry, I'm coming back to Brad Pitt). I've been ill in bed and yet unable - of course - to do anything sensible like sleep and read and listen to Martin Sheen's soothing voice on Desert Island Discs (well, actually, I did do that - did you know that Bill Clinton used to watch The West Wing on the plane? Anyway, focus, Claire, focus). I say "of course" because now that I have my iPad, I apparently lack the capability to be offline for more than about five minutes at a time.

I had an excuse, though. I needed to market Conquering Babel. And in so doing I came across a plethora, a multitude, a legion of expat magazines and expat blogs, and just like that, somehow, over a number of days, it came to me - the thing that should have come to me years ago, really, and kind of did, but I ignored it. The blogging thing. The blogging about languages thing.

It's not glamorous. It's not going to impress anyone at parties. It's not going to make me rich. But still, it's my thing. I've learned a lot over the last few years - a lot about languages, teaching them, learning them, and also a lot about writing and blogging and tweeting. And now all these things have come together in my shiny new blog, conqueringbabel.wordpress.com.

And of course, I need content. But one thing I've also learned a lot about these last couple of years is Google Alert. And my shiny new alert arrived a couple of nights ago with the news that Brad Pitt was learning French. (Actually, if you Google "Brad Pitt learning French", he's apparently said quite a lot about it over the years. Who knew? And yes, okay, I Googled "Bradley Whitford learning French", just to compare, and you get this, which while it is perfectly pleasant, does not actually have anything to do with learning French.)

So I blogged about him. Brad Pitt. Name dropped, if you will. Today (the very day when I happened to watch the Friends episode where he guest-stars, the coincidence of which is frankly a little spooky), I finally got wordpress sort of vaguely figured out and so I reposted the quote on that blog: the inaugural post, in fact. I added a photo of him. It didn't show up. Oh well. Wordpress is too clever for me.

And then, when I couldn't sleep at roughly 2.30 am, I opened up my iPad again, and clicked to my Wordpress blog. And there he was, right on the front page of the iPad version of the site. As though he were the theme of my blog. And let me reassure you, he is not.

But then something clicked in my sleep-deprived brain and I realised that a picture of him and the word Babel seemed to go together. And they do. Because of course, the film Babel? (Which, no, I haven't seen, since it's neither an intelligent romantic comedy nor written by Aaron Sorkin.)

I don't know. That's a lot of coincidences. Maybe he should be my mascot? Maybe I should put him on the front of my Conquering Babel book? Dedicate it to him? Too much?

Misused phrase of the week: "by definition"

This, from one of my favourite political podcasts, the New York Times' Caucus.

"...these special elections where, by definition, very few people turn out to vote..."

Really? That's the definition of a special election? That very few people turn out to vote?

I thought the definition of a special election was an election to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections. (Well, in truth, I have just checked on Wikipedia in order not to make an idiot of myself, because, although my knowledge of American politics is significantly better than it was in my pre-West Wing days, it's still far from complete.)

Anyway, back to the point at hand. The definition of a special election is not one in which few people turn out to vote. Therefore, the phrase "by definition" is not correct here. It would work in a phrase like this one:

"... these special elections, which by definition are not held in November..."

or even "... these special elections, which by definition are usually unexpected..." That is stretching it somewhat, but we can surmise that if they are not "regularly scheduled" it's because something has happened out of the blue. It's shaky ground, but you could just about argue it still stems from definition.

But low turnout? Of course, that's part of the nature of special elections. (Or by-elections, as we Brits call them.) So the phrase they wanted was by their very nature, not by definition.

Why does this matter? I was going to say, it doesn't really, so you can all stop listening to me now. And you can, but it does: precision in language is important. For accurate communication. For mutual understanding. And also, most importantly of all, just because.

All the cool kids are doing it...

Brad Pitt, on learning French:

“All our kids are speaking French, so now we have that second language infused into our home. Everyone is learning another language. I’ve got the Rosetta Stone for French sitting right on the table in the bedroom, and it’s going to be loaded into my brain. I know there are certain synapses in my brain that just freeze dead at French, but I have to learn it because our kids are speaking it. Even the twins as babies were saying certain things in French.”

(source: icydk.com)

Readable French books - yes, they really exist.

Are you learning French? Ready for the challenge of reading a whole book?

Stop! Don't pick just any book. You may be feeling it now, but three pages into the latest translated Sophie Kinsella, your dictionary will be soaked with tears of frustration. (You do have a dictionary, don't you?)

And let's take chick lit as an example. It feels easy to read in our language. But it's full of slang, in-fashion vocabulary, and the kind of words you probably aren't learning at your intensive EU course. It's hard. So you will feel stupid, and you feel doubly stupid because you will (wrongly) think that the thing you are finding difficult is in fact really easy.

Here are a few you can start with instead.

I grew up reading Le Petit Nicolas, and he is ace. His adventures in a classic old-fashioned French primary school will raise a smile.

Not only that, but it's written in the passé composé - ie, not in that odd tense we inexplicably call the passé simple, which makes it much easier to understand - and will painlessly reinforce all those past participles your French teacher has been trying to get you to learn.

Also, it's not a novel, but rather a series of stand-alone adventures: much more manageable to tell yourself you will read one story this week than, say, one novel in three months.

Another childhood classic is the adventure of this little boy who finds headlice in his hair, and befriends them. It's short, and funny, and full of word play (nothing too complicated, though), and the illustrations alone make it a worthwhile purchase.

Another oldie but goodie (okay, so I grew up in the 80s, and I'm not going to apologise for that) is Astérix. There is, of course, plenty of word play in this too, which makes it not the easiest of reads - though it also makes it fun once you work out what all the names are supposed to mean. My all-time, hands-down favourite is Astérix chez les Bretons, in which very British expressions are translated verbatim into French - so don't base your colloquial language on it, it's roughly as reliable as Google Translate - but it will make you smile. Plus, you'll discover some things about British history that I'll bet you never knew...

If you're more advanced, you might - might - want to try Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan. It is as French as French gets - deeply philosophical musings on the inner life of a French teenager during her stifling hot summer in the South of France. It's also beautifully written and - again - short. Honestly, you cannot underestimate the feeling of achievement that comes with finishing a novel - and those feelings fuel further learning.

Have you discovered any good French reads?


The books mentioned here, and others like them, can be found here if you're in the UK or Belgium, and here if you're in the US.

3BT: carrot soup, another review, and a new website

1. A lovely friend brings me home-made carrot soup and freshly squeezed oranges, and sympathy for my being ill at home.

2. I spend a few hours contacting expat magazines to see if they want to review Conquering Babel. The best-selling UK-based mag for Francophiles says yes. Potentially, this could mean a boost in sales, and it gives me confidence that I have a marketable product.

3. Having struggled with Wordpress, I've found a website designing and hosting service that does exactly what I wanted and is easy to use: weebly.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad