I have just returned from a five-week visit to France with my son. While staying in Bayonne, a dear friend and avid reader gave me a book which made me want to see the movie
Frida a second time.
Frida: Biographie de Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera is actually translated from the English original. What a wonderful gift. A paperback small enough to carry in a backpack, it contains three sections of photographs and reproductions of Frida's paintings. I'm enjoying every bit of it, but at over 700 pages -- written in my second language-- it will be a while before I finish. Now if only I could only visit the
Frida Kahlo's museum in Mexico before I have to go back to work...
In the meantime, if you ever visit Bayonne in Southwest France, try to visit "La Librarie de la rue en pente." This will always be one of my favorite bookstores. In it I bought a colourful 'BD' (graphic-format hardcover) on Vikings for my son, plus a couple of books for myself:
Comment Sauver L'Afrique en quinze jours is supposedly a comic novel about naive, liberal do-gooders by an author who goes simply by the name 'freville.' The bookseller recommended it as funny, sexy and very popular.
Le Vertige des auteurs, by Georges Flipo, is supposed to help potential writers by 'exorcising the demon of literature,' if you believe the jacket blurb. Hey, if it doesn't cure my writing itch, it will at least help me procrastinate.
Happy reading.
