Tuesday, July 31, 2012

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Le Road Trip


Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
This is like a meme within a meme, because I'm taking part in Diane's First Chapter First Paragraph, but my emphasis this month is on France with the Paris in July meme sponsored byThyme for Tea and Bookbath.
One more French book. This one, by Vivian Swift, is Le Road Trip. She calls it "part journal," "part instruction manual" for a traveling lifestyle in France. It's kind of hard to pinpoint the first paragraph here because the book is set up kin of newspaper style with different columns. I'm going with this paragraph because it seems to start the story.
When I was 19 years old I worked in the office of a factory that made industrial gauges. All day long I filled out shipping forms, by hand, in pencil, which I then handed over to a skilled worker -- the typist.
I understood, from the names on theses shipping forms, that gauges were used to manufacture a variet of liquid and gassy things, from beer to chemical weapons.
Gauges. They are a dreary way to view the wonders and evils of human enterprise.
It was my first day back at work after the New Year holidays of 1975. I stared at a stack of shipping forms and suddenly knew that I had to quit this life. I had to go to Paris.
Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 21, under "Tips About What to Wear in Paris":

Three Truths: One: You are not Parisian and you never will be. Don't let that bother you. Two: Parisians don't want to know you, no matter how well you dress, so you might as well be yourself. Three: Deep down, Parisians are crazy jealous that they can't let loose like us crazy Americans.
I've loved participating in Paris in July and getting to learn about great new books set in France and experiences that people have had. I hope that next summer, I'll be able to use a first paragraph from my own book The Summer of France as a First Paragraph and Tuesday Teaser meme. Until then, Bon Voyage.

3 comments:

JoAnn said...

I read this book at the beginning of the month and thoroughly enjoyed it - hope you are, too!

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

This sounds like a good one , adding it to my list. Can't wait to read your thoughts.

Anonymous said...

Both books are appealing

Cockadoodle Doo or Cocorico?

 We stood in the middle of the road, having walked together 13 miles that day and Claudine grasped my forearm. "Mais non! It doesn'...