Merde! PDF Download

Author: Genevieve
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684854279
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
Explains the meaning of French slang expressions, idioms, epithets, and colloquialisms.

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596917466
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
A Year in the Merde is the almost-true account of the author's adventures as an expat in Paris. Based on his own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action-and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit", the book is narrated by Paul West, a twenty-seven-year-old Brit who is brought to Paris by a French company to open a chain of British "tea rooms." He must manage of a group of lazy, grumbling French employees, maneuver around a treacherous Parisian boss, while lucking into a succession of lusty girlfriends (one of whom happens to be the boss's morally challenged daughter). He soon becomes immersed in the contradictions of French culture: the French are not all cheese-eating surrender monkeys, though they do eat a lot of smelly cheese, and they are still in shock at being stupid enough to sell Louisiana, thus losing the chance to make French the global language. The book will also tell you how to get the best out of the grumpiest Parisian waiter, how to survive a French business meeting, and how not to buy a house in the French countryside. The author originally wrote A Year in the Merde just for fun and self-published it in France in an English-language edition. Weeks later, it had become a word-of-mouth hit for expats and the French alike. With translation rights now sold in eleven countries and already a bestseller in the UK and France, Stephen Clarke is clearly a Bill Bryson (or a Peter Mayle...) for a whole new generation of readers who can never quite decide whether they love-or love to hate-the French.

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 159691744X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
The latest episode in Stephen Clarke's almost-true account of his adventures as an expat in France is just as winning as the first. This "anti-Mayle" will have readers chortling over their croissants and café au lait while Paul West struggles to solve the mysteries inherent in life in France. What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Is it really polite to sleep with your boss's mistress? And why are there no public health warnings on French nude beaches? Paul discovers how to judge a French vacationer by the rustiness of his bicycle; opens his English tearoom; and finally understands why Parisian waiters are so cranky. Just in time for spring in Paris, find out if Paul finds the perfect French mademoiselle or if it all ends in merde!

Author: Genevieve
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501112589
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Learn all the French slang, dirty words, and necessary tools of communication your teachers left out of their lesson plans with this essential survival guide to understanding everyday French. Deliciously saucy and full of wit Merde! is a practical guide for understanding French, as it really is spoken. This real-life resource is for anyone who remembers thumbing through English/French dictionaries for such words as "toilet paper" and "damn," as well as for the far more interesting, titillating terms that would never be used in polite conversation. But real French isn't spoken with the intent of being polite… With epithets for every occasion, a range of colorful idioms, and a wealth of come-ons and put-downs, this is the only language book you'll need to prepare for a trip to the city of lights.

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453243569
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This international bestseller from the author of A Year in the Merde “combines the gaffes of Bridget Jones with the boldness of James Bond” (Publishers Weekly). When the glorious oceanographer Gloria Monday convinces Paul West to travel to the swank beaches of southern France—where she’s investigating caviar-smuggling cartels—he assumes he’s about to have the time of his life. But for West, France has always been full of surprises underfoot, and this trip is no exception to the rule. He’s soon dragged into an undercover investigation that goes all the way to the top and leaves him feeling sometimes like James Bond, sometimes like Inspector Clouseau. Dial M for Merde is a comic caper that pokes fun at French society at every level, from pompous politicians to grumpy waitstaff.

Author: Ralph A. Lewin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307557898
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Merde is an unusual (very unusual) and witty investigation into a subject you may always have wondered about--but didn't know quite what to ask. History, biology, anthropology, culture, animal behavior--all of these are the real subjects of Merde. Why can some animals do it on the run, and others can't? Why does camel dung make good fires? What are the fascinating stories of the dung beetles? Myths and legends, physical features, health and disease, uses for construction and as fertilizers--even nutritional values!--Ralph Lewin writes about them all in the most ingratiating and sophisticated and yet scientific way. Merde is also full of personal adventures and observations, as well as anecdotes and examples. The scattered literature on this subject is voluminous, but until now no one has perused and compiled it all and given it a personal touch, so to speak. It will be hard not to talk about this treasure trove of a book after you've finished it--or perhaps even when you're in the middle of it.

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473537657
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
THE POST-BREXIT EDITION - brand new chapters with extra EU chaos for Englishman Paul West. An Englishman, Paul West, goes to Brussels to work for a French MEP. There he gets an insider's view of what really goes on in the massive madhouse that is the EU Parliament. With the referendum on the horizon, things are even more hysterical than usual. When the Brexit result comes in, Paul has to make a decision. If he wants to work in Europe, should he apply for a French passport? But can an Englishman really become French? Can he sing the bloodthirsty 'Marseillaise'? Can he even pronounce the word 'Marseillaise'? And as Paul contemplates his own personal Brexit, the whole of Brussels seems to be going into meltdown ...

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448108276
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Englishman Paul West is living the Parisian dream, and doing his best not to annoy the French. But recently things have been going très wrong: He's stuck in an apartment so small that he has to cut his baguettes in two to fit them in the kitchen. His research into authentic French cuisine is about to cause a national strike - and it could be all his fault. His Parisian business partner is determined to close their tea-room. And thinks that sexually harrassing his female employees is a basic human right. And Paul's gorgeous ex-girlfriend seems to be stalking him. Threatened with eviction, unemployment and bankrupcy, Paul realises that his personal merde factor is about to hit the fan...

Author: Stephen Clarke
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 1742748279
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of A Year in the Merde, the next instalment in the hilarious adventures of Paul West. 'Edgier than Bryson, hits harder than Mayle' The Times A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss's mistress? Paul opens his English tea room, and mutates (temporarily) into a Parisian waiter; samples the pleasures of typically French hotel-room afternoons; and, on a return visit to the UK, sees the full horror of a British office party through Parisian eyes. Meanwhile, he continues his search for the perfect French mademoiselle. But will Paul find l'amour éternel, or will it all end in merde? MERDE ACTUALLY In his second comedy of errors, Paul West continues to sabotage the entente cordiale. Author's apology: 'I'd just like to say sorry to all the suppository fans out there, because in this book there are no suppositories. There are, however, lots of courgettes, and I see this as progress. Suppositories to courgettes - I think it proves that I'm developing as a writer.' Stephen Clarke

Author: Dominique Laporte
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262621601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless." Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important—and irreverent—position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard. Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals—including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic. Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.