Page 123

I've just been tagged by My Inner French Girl.

Believe it or not, normally I've got a blogging editorial roster backlog that I can't wiggle with too much (I still do!) but this was so random and enticing, I couldn't resist.

The mandate: pick up a book on the top of your book stack, turn to page 123, read the first five sentences, then post the next three sentences.

What really appealed to me was that this meme doesn't require a lot of time, thought process, or decision-making, which are definitely on this week's "need-to-address-this-issue" list.

So here goes.

The book is Lust in Translation by Pamela Druckerman. I met Pamela last spring at the American Library in Paris. She's fun and witty! Her book has received more attention this week again when she wrote a column for the Washington Post, which you can read here.

Anyway, here are the requisite lines from page 123 of Lust in Translation:

"About a year after beginning the affair with Danielle, he finally left the therapist he'd been seeing for six years. 'I solved the problems,' he explains. 'The problems were marriage and sex.'"

Just for fun, though, I peeked at another book on my nightstand table, The Essence of Style by Joan DeJean.

page one-two-three:

"As continues to be the case in all French restaurants that aspire to the standards of haute cuisine, they were also dealing in atmosphere. Their conviction that the way in which the plate and the food were displayed was as important as what was on the plate paid off handsomely, and traiteurs were soon doing a brisk business all over the city.

By the early 1690s, Nicolas de Belgny's guide to the French capital's best addresses listed thiry-four traiteurs whom he recommended when people wanted 'to treat themselves to a fine meal': the niche that the Michelin Guide was created to fill in 1900 had been invented."




Now I'm tagging Quoide9Cecile, Blue Vicar, and The Late Bloomer.



Tag, you're it.

P.S. This road sign is pretty random, too. I made it the other day while procrastinating. Just wanted to keep the random theme going.