France a Handbook for New Residents

I thought I was getting a late Christmas present last week when the post delivered a large heavy sack - it was full of books for me to review.

I gave up reviewing books five years ago when I got fed-up with the plinkity plonkity “aren’t I a clever person doing up an old ruin…”, or the even more tedious ones that start, “the sunlight dippling through the leaves outside my window….”

This mailbag (the box of books had burst open in transit) seems to have some real gems in it - they are from a new publisher and their idea is to offer these for online for you to read, you can then download or order them from Amazon. They tell me it will about three weeks before their online services are ready, but I prefer paper books I can read on the train and hold in my hands.

The first one out of the sack was “France a Handbook for New Residents” - this is a 569 pages of solid research and well put together. The most important thing with a reference book is the index and this is a solid 22 pages in small print.

The author, Michael Brady, has worked hard to give us a comprehensive book that does exactly what it says.

Interestingly I have offered this book from both Amazon.com (USA) and Amazon.co.uk (UK) and even though the dollar seems to be having a hard time this month, there is a big difference in the prices shown - an even better deal is to come over to my place and buy my review copy half price (and share a glass of wine).