La Seduction by Elaine Sciolino

Just read about Elaine Sciolino's book La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life in the New York Times Book Review.

Like Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French, La Seduction is a book about French culture and ideology from the perspective of an outsider who has spent years in France.

While Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong educates readers (presumably Americans) on why their preconceptions about the French are wrong, La Seduction  frames her book around the idea that the French live for the seduction. Where us Americans have only a way of life, the French have an art de vivre.

While the review by Caroline Weber in the New York Times isn't exactly glowing -- "Carefully researched and lucidly argued, “La Seduction” develops a wonderfully suggestive theory of French pleasure, but in practice, its sometimes schematic thinking and clunky prose would have benefited from a touch more je ne sais quoi — just a little soupçon of seductive allure" -- I would like to read it.

Expect another post about this book if I can find a copy at my local library.