Friday, July 19, 2024

Clara Reads Proust by Stéphane Cartier: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop






Today's Featured Book 

Clara Reads Proust

 by Stéphane Cartier

Genre: Fiction

Published: April 30, 2024

Page Count: 192 pages

Summary: 

"Clara is a hairdresser at Cindy Coiffure, a sleepy French salon with an identity crisis. Her relationship is fizzling out. Her tanoholic boss Madame Habib worships Jacques Chirac and talks longingly of her days in Paris. The highlight of the week was when the dishy technician came to repair the display cabinet. And now Madame Lévy-Leroyer wants to go blonde. Clara can’t help but wonder if there’s more to life . . .

Everything changes when a customer leaves behind the first volume of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. As Clara reads, she discovers a whole new world, leading her to strike up an unexpected friendship. And slowly but surely, she will work out who she wants to be."




 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City ReaderWhat book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.


"Madame Habib is standing on the pavement, wearing a blouse despite the cold, one arm extended to keep her cigarette at a distance, while the other remains folded across her stomach. Tense and shivering, she examines the window of her salon as if she is trying to solve its mystery."








THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by 
Freda's Voice, but Freda is currently taking a break and Anne of Head Full of Books is filling in. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 


'"The more you read, the more you like it, have you noticed?"

"You do," says Clare. "Because you get used to its rhythm. At the start you're like I don't understand, this sentence should end and yet it's carrying on, but that's because you're reading it too quickly. That's a mistake. You have to take your time, take breaks. Now, when I read it, I feel like I can hear it speaking to me."'






Clara is living her life---she works in a beauty salon where she doesn't really care for her customers or her boss or her fellow employees...she lives with a man she is bored with...and she goes along day after day, doing the tasks she must do, until she runs across a book, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. She takes the book home and forgets about it for months, until one day she starts reading it. And reading it. Volume one and then on to two and three...all the way to seven. And everything changes...

You know that you enjoyed a book and were impressed by a book if you, immediately upon finishing the book, take action recommended by characters in the book; I downloaded all seven volumes, all three thousand pages, of Proust when I finished this book.







The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer   

July 19th-25th - July is a month for getaways and adventure. What is your favorite book that takes the reader on an exciting journey or transfers them to a captivating destination? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

A lot of my favorite reads take place on the road. Here are a few of them: 


Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
True Grit by Charles Portis
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig


Il est Juillet et il est temps pour le merveilleux Paris in July, hosted by Emma at Words and Peace.


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