I treated myself to "Colette's Christmas" by baker extraordinaire Colette Peters while on vacation. It seemed a strange thing to read while at the beach, but I was absolutely captivated. What a fevered imagination Ms. Peters has! The showstoppingly gorgeous desserts and projects she shows within include a layer cake covered with fondant that has been pieced and quilted to resemble and antique quilt (and it surely does); a chocolate bowl filled to overflowing with spectacular chocolate spheres (the cover photograph); hinged, jointed cookies which really move and make splendid Christmas ornaments (all in human forms, like Santa, Raggedy Ann, and so on); gift boxes made entirely of decorated cookie dough; a shimmering "stained glass" cake; and a three-dimensional Christmas gazebo constructed around a towering decorated Christmas tree made of piped icing.

Even if the projects herein appear way too complicated or time-consuming for most people--as they do for me, I'll admit--Ms. Peters gives splendidly clear, concise directions in a conversational tone that make starting your own gingerbread house seem, somehow, not as daunting as it really should be.

Each year I prepare the desserts for my husband's office Christmas party (over 400 guests). I always try to come up with one special "show stopper" and Colette's chocolate bowl and ornaments was it for last year! I'm certainly a beginner but, with a little practice and Ms. Peter's clear instructions, I was able to create pieces that were the talk of the night. Several people even asked to take one home to show their family. I can't wait until next Christmas when I can try something even more amazing!

Once again, Colette establishes herself as the numero uno in desserts and sugar craft. The items shown are very sophisticated and tasteful. The directions are succinct and not pretentious. She does everyone a favor by putting this out! Definitely one of my favorites.

In The City is a fantastic read. I never wanted to put it down and the few times when I did, the book immediately beckoned me back. Brooks' visions and ponderings are haunting and thought-provoking. With a language and structure that is incredibly unique and exquisitely poetic, she pulls the reader into the heart and soul of the city- a world so familiar and yet like no other. Any reader will quickly see that this is one of those ever so rare times when a writer will bring a brand new perspective to the world, and let us all look at the same old city for the very first time.

This first book from Colette Brooks is the carefully constructed product of a lifetime of reflection. This genre-stretching work should appeal to any city-dweller who's ever spent a half hour on the subway looking around at his or her fellow passengers and wondering what it all means.

Colette Brooks has joined the ranks of writers like E.B. White and Jane Jacobs with her beautiful new book, IN THE CITY. Brooks' subtly poetic prose, gentle humor, and eye for the telling detail open the city to the reader, revealing its soul. Anyone who has ever lived in, or dreamed of living in, a city will find this book resonating with echoes of their own feelings and dreams. It is impossible to put it down and impossible to leave it behind. One returns to the book again and again relishing special moments, phrases and insights. Ms. Brooks writes beautifully, sparely and with a unique voice.

I read this book cover to cover the night my mother handed it to me. At times I laughed; more often I cried. Colette's story is inspiring; her sense of humor is amazing. After a particularly aggressive treatment she was feeling poorly and yet told her husband, "hat treatment was so strong the hair's falling out of my WIG!"I am grateful she has shared the lessons she learned: listen to your body, research and be actively involved in your own treatment, maintain as much normalcy as possible, seek the support of friends, treasure each day that you do have with your family, and most of all, draw on your faith to be open to the blessings God brings, even in cancer. This book is a testament to a remarkable woman and an exemplary faith.

This book is a must for all who are effected by cancer, whether you are a victim of the disease or a family member of one. If you have ever thought of giving up or know of someone who has, this book will show that faith and perserverence can stretch a one year to live "death sentence" into four more years. This story enables you to get to know and love an ol' farm girl who loved life and taught her family to do the same, while remaining focused on the ultimate victory in our Lord Jesus Christ. May she impact your life just as she has mine, her youngest daughter.

This book is exceptional in the fact that it was written by the person experiencing cancer itself. No one can explain what someone goes through better than the one with cancer. It shows to trust your instincts, and check out all suspicious ailments. I would suggest that anyone trying to understand what someone with cancer is going through to read this book.

The Collected Stories of Colette by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, ed., and with an introduction by, Robert Phelps. Highly recommended.

According to the introduction, this collection represents 100 stories taken from a dozen volumes published during Colette's lifetime. They are categorised as "Early Stories," Backstage at the Music Hall," "Varieties of Human Nature," and "Love." Some, like the Clouk/Chéri stories, appear to be fiction, while many, like "The Rainy Moon" and "Bella-Vista," seem to be taken straight from Colette's varied life and acquaintances.

Whether writing fiction or chronicling fact, whether writing in the third-person omniscient or in the first person, Colette herself is always a character-rarely as an influencer, that is, one whose actions or choices drive the plot. Colette's preferred role is as observer-and it is one for which she is well suited.

An inveterate sensualist and a former music-hall performer, Colette integrates her characters (real and fictional) with everything around them-their clothes (costumes), their abodes, dressing rooms, and haunts (sets), and their neighborhoods and towns (theatres). Much of Colette's writing, no matter how mundane the surface subject, is about art-the art of living and, notably, the art of loving. In "My Goddaughter," the subject tells her godmother how she injured herself with scissors and a curling iron and recounts her mother's reaction. "She said that I had ruined her daughter for her! She said, 'What have you done with my beautiful hair which I tended so patiently? . . . And that cheek, who gave you permission to spoil it! . . . I've taken years, I've spent my days and nights, trembling over this masterpiece. . . ."

Colette is attuned to everything, every sense, every nuance. "A faint fragrance did indeed bring to my nostrils the memory of various scents which are at their strongest in autumn." ("Gibriche") ". . . set in a bracelet, which slithered between her fingers like a cold and supple snake." ("The Bracelet") " . . . the supper of rare fruits, an[d]of ice water sparkling in the thin glasses, as intoxicating as champagne . . ." ("Florie") "Peroxided hair, light-colored eyes, white teeth, something about her of an appetizing but slightly vulgar young washerwoman." ("Gitanette")

Colette does not pretend to be an objective observer of human behaviour; she does not hesitate to express to the reader her weariness with certain individuals or situations, and her stories of her vain, pretentious, overbearing friend Valentine reveal her jaded and waning affection. She knows this woman so well that she sees her almost as Valentine sees herself-a drama queen acting out stories, roles, and games without depth of feeling for them. "What Must We Look Like?" becomes Valentine's driving philosophy, to which Colette responds with "a mild, a kindly pity." In "The Hard Worker," Colette says, "I can see she does not hate him, but I cannot see she loves him either." What Colette sees-and does not see-is to be respected.

Some stories, such as "The Sick Child," are vivid and imaginative and reveal Colette's amazing ability to think and dream like a gifted child. "The Advice," with its mundane beginning and premise and twisted, horrifying ending would enhance any collection of gothic or mystery tales. Other stories, like "Gibriche," several of the other music-hall stories, and "Bella-Vista," tackle topics that even today remain controversial. "Bella-Vista," in which Colette's moods seem to wane with every familiarity achieved with her hostesses, offers an ending that is heavily foreshadowed throughout but is surprising and gruesome nonetheless.

Most of the stories, whether fiction or nonfiction, seem to come from life in one way or another. The quantity of stories and the quality of the collection reveal the incredible scope of experience of Colette, the dry, often weary yet obsessive observer, interpreter, and chronicler of human nature. As Judith Thurman says in her introduction to Colette's work, The Pure and the Impure, "This great ode to emptiness was written by a woman who felt full." As well she should.

Diane L. Schirf, 27 May 2003.

Ok. You've read the Claudine novels, and Cheri and the Return of Cheri. Now what? There are other novels (The Vagabond, Gigi, My Mother's House) but there are these short stories that are "must-reads."

Colette was one of France's most distinguished writers. Though not a writer of massive books like Victor Hugo or Proust, or of psychological novels like Zola or Flaubert, she caught that French essence of individuality and quirkiness and the golden age of La Belle Epoque before World War One changed France forever. Her books are pure joy as are these short stories. If you have NOT read Colette, you are in for a treat. (And don't neglect Claudine or Cheri. )

If you're looking for a refreshing deviation from the mean of women writers, then Colette is it. Her stories offer a pleasurable clearing of the literary palate.

I loved this little book and read it in one sitting on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It made me wish that Colette would invite me to dinner! The writing swept me along throughout the journeys in her life. The recipes were a surprise bonus for me as I had never read her other books and had no idea she was known for cuisine. It was the beautiful cover that sold me! Highly recommend this book. I can barely cook, but am going to try the Agvolemono soup, a favorite from my 20's when I worked upstairs from a Greek Deli in downtown Boston.

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Reading _Return to Paris_ (and preparing its recipes) is like listening to a Piaf song, at once strikingly beautiful and hauntingly sad, something that commands your attention to the very end.

So, dear reader, beware! For should you open the first page of this book, you may find yourself swept away to a Paris you never knew of, to return to a present made a little sadder by finding there are no more pages left to turn.

I also recommend these other books by Rossant which I have read:
- Memories of a Lost Egypt (the first of her food memoirs)
- Bocuse a la Carte (translator)
- Colette Rossant's After Five Gourmet
- Colette's Slim Cuisine
- New Kosher Cooking
- Vegetable

I don't usually read food-related books. I generally stick with novels or straightforward history/biography. Yet I could not resist Colette Rossant's earlier memoir, Memories of a Lost Egypt, for its poignant, delectable interweaving of memories, recipes, and passionate observations about the tastes and foods she discovered as a child growing up in remarkable circumstances. (Her recipes are fabulous, by the way--easy to recreate.)

Rossant's new book, Return to Paris, continues the story of her extraordinary upbringing. I really recommend reading both books, which are delightfully different but ideal companions. In fact, I so loved Rossant's evocation of Cairo in both writing and recipes, and her candid portrait of her family there, that I wasn't sure at first how I would react to her new memoir's focus on Paris, where she returned as a teenager. As it turns out, I enjoyed the dramatic turn this book reflects, in both her life and her culinary education, as she describes her difficult adjustment to postwar life in a country so different from her beloved Egypt. I was touched by young Colette's largeness of spirit as she accepts her losses and isolation, and opens up to the delights of Paris and its food.

Rossant is a wonderful writer with an explorer's personality, which makes her books transcend their genre. Lovers of good stories and good writing, as well as marvelous food, will enjoy Return to Paris. I'd like to add that given the events of our time, in particular the appalling anti-French and anti-Arab behavior some folks exhibit, it is compelling to read how one young person bridged two strikingly different cultures with grace, open eyes, and receptive tastebuds.

This book is a must-have for teachers and students of the French 5 AP Language course. It has hundreds of examples of actual test questions and a very complete vocabulary list. Highly recommended!!

This book is a must for teachers teaching (or tutors tutoring) for the AP French Language exam. It includes hundreds of opportunities for students to get practice taking the difficult exam (it has sections from every part of the test, taken from actual past exams). In addition, in the back is an incredibly complete and useful vocabulary list. Highly recommended!

Laure's writings which were previously only available in French (pub 1977) are now gathered in this spellbinding volume. Her sickly life and early death (aged 35) make for dark, tightly written meditations on mortality, life and love. her love affair with writer Georges Bataille makes for compelling reading as her desperation at being sick with TB makes her cling to him more. The biographical sketch also sheds light on a key unrecognised figure in the Paris / Surrealism 30s scene. This was a charismatic woman who not only appears in Bataille's fiction buut also on Blanchot's Death Sentence. A must have for any french literature fans. Beautiful stuff. Much loved by the late kathy Acker.

Reading the collected writings of Laure one can easily understand why Bataille loved her with such passion. Indeed, Laure lived and wrote with such passion that she shames everyone who is "content with a petty life" and who "abandons the ardor of living through fear of suffering."

Colette's Renee Nere is complex, her name alone tells us that (the last name is the first name spelled backwards, not to mentioned that Renee means "reborn"). This female protagonist would certainly fit in with the modern notion of being female, and in the early 20th century, this was not only rare, but not very-well understood. I adore this book because of the way it encourages women (by example) to carve out their own existence and not to rely upon men for security. It is also wonderfully written. However, you'll be in for a shocker if you read the sequel, "The Shackle".

Gigi may be the best known of her works, but 'The Vagabond' stands out in pure beauty from the rest. The plot (an actress on the stage who faces public scorn and problems in love) seems to be most autobiographical, and narrator and main character, Renee Nere, is a delight. Both beautiful and painful in spots, this book deserves to be read, as well as its sequel, 'The Shackle.'

"In The Shadows Of War" by Thomas Childers. Sub-titled: "An American Pilot's Odyssey Through Occupied France And The Camps Of Nazi Germany". Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2002.

This book is so well written that it reads like a novel, with suspense building up as you turn each page.
Will the B-17 pilot, Roy Allen, escape from his badly damaged aircraft? Will he be captured by the Germans? Or be rescued by the French Resistance? The French get to him first and he is assigned to a hiding place in a small village. The young teacher, Colette Florin, hides him as they all await liberation by the Allied Armies coming from the Normandy Beaches. But the Allies are delayed by fierce fighting that Summer of 1944, and Roy Allen decides to leave the relative safety of Colette Florin's rooms above the girls' school. He wants to travel to occupied Paris to reach the Resistance pipeline to get him out of France. It was here that the "novel" aspects began to overwhelm me. I said to myself that I would not write it that way; it would be more realistic if the American flyer stayed with the French teacher in the so-called "Golden Cage" and wait for the Allied Armies. Then I saw the photo section (between pages 240 & 241), and I was reminded that Roy Allen actually existed! He was NOT a fictional character. Nor was Colette. They, along with Pierre Muslant, lived and struggled in wartime France. Pierre Muslant was a member of the French Resistance who was to help Roy escape via Paris. Along with Roy, Muslant was captured and died in Buchenwald, so there is only a sketch of him, not a photograph.

The excellent writing along with the actual story of this adventure made it almost impossible to put this book down. Just remember, as you read the book, it is fact, not fiction.

"In the Shadows of War" is a triumph on numerous levels. First it's one helluva story. The true adventures of Roy Allen, the US pilot shot down over France in June 1944, are remarkable. Moreover, Childers is a skilled writer. The reader will feel transported to France and Germany in 1944-45. The experience of being an Allied pilot, of hiding from the enemy, fearing for one's life, suffering horrible depravations and barbarity are vividly presented. The bravery of the French resistantce fighters is inspiring as the cruelty of the SS and Gestapo is frightening. Concentration camps are not so much described as guided through. The forced march during a snowstorm from one POW camp to the next is similarly endured.
The central character, Roy Allen, is cast as a heroic figure, with an indominable will to survive, all the while doing the right thing. (How Childers tells Allen's story apparently without ever having met him is also a noteworthy acheivement). But it is also evident that there were many Roy Allens who served the Allies in WWII.
"In the Shadows of War " also has a strong supporting cast. Most especially, Colette Florin the school teacher who risked her life to hide Allen in her apartment. Childers wisely takes the time to fully introduces and present Florin and the rest of the "cast."
This book will not just have appeal to World War II buffs. Anyone who likes a cracking good story and appreciates good writing will be drawn into the "Shadows of War."

I'd give this book 6 stars if the software permitted! Childers has created a searing account of an American airman's life on the run in occupied France, in the hands of the Gestapo, and in the stinking hell of Buchenwald concentration camp. As others have pointed out, the identity of the French resistants can be confusing, as their code names change with different missions, but all you need bear in mind are Colette the schoolteacher, Pierre the secret agent, and Roy Allen the American pilot--their are the "three lives" of the Amazon.com sub-title. Note that the sub-title of the published book is different, as is the photo of the Lysander on the dust jacket. -- Dan Ford

The author feels that many substance abusers have an underlying emotional problem like depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder etc. They really need to be treated for this in order to get the substance abuse under control.

If you are having a substance abuse problem, read this book and be sure you get screened by a real professional for emotional problems. Keep an open mind and save yourself a lot of trouble and heartache. When the emotional issues get resolved, the substance abuse problem may practically take care of itself!

A great "primer" on depression. This is the first book I read on depression after reading Darkness Visible, and I still think it's one of the best, especially as the author's daughter, who suffered from depression, contributed to it.

This was the first work on depression authored with a real life perspective on the illness and its affects on "life" that I had read. Having been trained in the mental health field and being employed in a mental health related job, this was the first work to help me feel better about my own illness. It was so easy to be understanding and supportive of others with this illness, but when it came time for me to understand and to be caring for myself, it all but elluded me.

Also in this work I found the connections between depression, addiction, weight related issues, and hormonal problems. Every little piece of my spotty medical history came into focus under the hands of the author in this book. I have yet to read anything that has helped me on the road to understanding my depressive illness any more than this book. Having a lay person relate information through her own real experiences is a definate plus as well.