Demystifying the French

Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You is aimed at first-time visitors to France as well as long-term expatriates. Designed to help readers crack the code, avoid common mistakes, and get off on the right foot with the French, the book begins with five easy-to-follow essential tips for even brief encounters by introducing a few French phrases--and how to say them--that will pave the way for a positive experience in France. The tips are followed by 10 chapters that go into a deeper explanation of French habits, manners, and ways of viewing the world. Hulstrand shares the perspective she has gained in nearly 40 years of time spent living, working, teaching, and traveling in France, and illustrates the principles she is discussing with sometimes touching, and often amusing, personal anecdotes. Her deep admiration and affection for the French people is clear, but she also knows that they can require special handling and provides helpful, practical tips on how to do so, inviting readers to learn from her mistakes. Reflections contributed by David Downie, Adrian Leeds, Harriet Welty Rochefort, and other well-known commentators on Franco-American cultural differences provide additional perspective and depth. A glossary of French terms that is both substantive and whimsical provides surprising insights into historical as well as cultural reasons for the French being the way they are. Aimed mainly at an American audience, this book will be helpful for anyone who wants to better understand the French, and have fun while doing so.
About the Author: Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher who divides her time between France and the United States. Her essays and articles have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and Smithsonian, and she writes regularly for Bonjour Paris, France Today, France Revisited, and for her blog, Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road. In 1997 she created Paris: A Literary Adventure for the City University of New York, and she has taught this class in Paris nearly every summer since then, as well as literary travel programs in Cuba, Italy, and Hawaii. In 2008 she created Writing from the Heart, a workshop/retreat offered in Essoyes, a beautiful little village in the Champagne region of France. She is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of English at Queens College, CUNY; a popular instructor of classes at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.; and she has led book groups at the American Library in Paris. Hulstrand is sole proprietor of Winged Words Editorial Services, and founder and co-director of the Essoyes School, which offers writing and art workshops. Her first book, Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home, received widespread praise, and she and her coauthor publish a blog, Downsizing the Home: Lessons Learned. She is currently working on a literary memoir, A Long Way from Iowa.