by Emile Carrière (2005)
Emile Carrière a 32 ans en 1914 lorsqu'il est mobilisé comme soldat fantassin de 2 ème classe sur le front de l'Est. Anticipant sur une possible disparition, il désire laisser à son épouse et à ses enfants le récit de la guerre vue des tranchées et des villes ou villages qu'il parcourt avec son régiment. Les carnets et certaines de ses lettres ont été conservés, et il est possible de suivre sa vie de soldat jusqu'à sa démobilisation d'abord comme combattant sur le champ de bataille, puis dans des ateliers ou des usines de guerre sur le front à Toulouse et à Bergerac.
Patricia C. McKissack
Brought up in France as the African slave companion of a nobleman's daughter, thirteen-year-old Zettie records the events of 1763, when she and her mistress escape to the New World where they are inadvertently drawn into the hostilities of the ongoing French and Indian War and, eventually, find a new direction to their lives.
Christopher Fifield
"Fifty years ago, Kathleen Ferrier, the greatest lyric contralto Britain has ever produced, lost her courageous battle with breast cancer. Her name endures to this day for she struck a chord with a wide-ranging public, in concerts, on records and on the radio, despite a career which lasted barely ten years. Within a decade this former telephone exchange operator was singing on stage at Covent Garden or before royalty at private parties. She must have been fun to know, and from this collection of letters, just over three hundred of them gathered from sources in Britain, America, Canada and Holland, as well as twelve years of her personal diaries, what emerges provides a sunny picture in the gloomy landscape of post-Second World War days." "Until now Kathleen Ferrier has been a voice, but through the pages of these fascinating letters and diaries we get to the person. Her correspondents include composer Benjamin Britten, conductors John Barbirolli and Bruno Walter, her accompanist John Newmark, her agents John and Emmie Tillett, as well as family, friends and fans. Her letters not only illuminate the musical life of Britain, Europe and America but also the detailed organisation involved in programming, touring, and performing in the very different arenas of concerts, recitals, opera, broadcasting and recording."--Jacket.
Dan Hofstadter
Hofstadter "shows how these rediscovered documents [forgotten personal writing which has resurfaced in France] bear on the erotic lives of their writers, and how the fine French tradition of conducting love affairs developed as an art form....The romantic trajectory runs from Benjamin Constant and Mme. de Staël to the beautiful Mme. Récamier and her lover Chateaubriand; from George Sand and Alfred de Musset to Mme. de Caillavet and Anatole France; and it concludes with a touching portrait, based partly on still-unpublished sources, of the girl who became the model for Proust's Gilberte."--Jacket.
Hubert Nyssen
Anecdotes, réflexions sur la littérature, la critique, le milieu littéraire et journalistique et croquis d'auteurs (Nina Berberova, François Nourissier, Nicolâas Guillén, etc.). Le journal d'un éditeur de premier plan qui se demande qu'est-ce qui le fait courir de Paris à Tel Aviv, d'Arles à Amsterdam, de New York à Montréal, de La Havane à Princeton (c'est l'amour de la littérature universelle).