The Rush Job Memoir That's Topping the French Charts

What’d you do last month? The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy went to jail, found God, and wrote a book in less time than, as one woman observed, it takes to get your period twice. Entitled “Le Journal d’un Prisonnier,” the memoir has become the butt of many jokes and also a No. 1 bestseller. Have I read it and reviewed it? Why, yes, I have! Since we last talked, I also published a piece about visiting John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the lovely, doomed Vicomtesse de Saint Périer with her great-great-grandson. Best of all, a bunch of new subscriptions (hi, new subscribers!) allowed me to donate a grand total of five hundred thirty-seven dollars to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, feeding the hungry for more than thirty-five years in Wilmington, North Carolina. If you there’s someone who likes France or French or my writing on your Christmas list, sign them up for Lettre Recommandée:

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Researching the Sargent piece, I read Julian Barnes’s “The Man in the Red Coat,” a life of another of the painter’s subjects, the society gynecologist Dr. Samuel Pozzi. Barnes’s writing is as elegant and erudite as usual, and Dr. Pozzi delivers, bumping up against various notables as the Forrest Gump of Belle Époque Paris. “In June 1885, three Frenchmen arrive in London,” the book begins. “One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian surname. The Count subsequently described their purpose as ‘intellectual and decorative shopping.’ ” I also read and admired “Happiness and Love,” Zoe Dubno’s gleeful art-world takedown; “The Kingdom of Characters,” Jing Tsu’s chronicle of the battle to transform the Chinese language into a modern technology; and “Careless People,” Sarah Wynn-Williams’s somehow very funny exposé of Facebook depravity.

Intellectual shopping—let’s go. Did you know that Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States of America, in December 1777? That a “librocubiculariste” is a person who reads in bed? That top footballers are suffering from pubalgia, that Jules Koundé’s nickname is Tchoupi, and that someone’s been massacring trees in the Sixteenth Arrondissement? Save Jimmy’s Corner, please. Delight in other people’s diaries. I was thinking this morning, while walking, that the most pleasing three-street trajectory in Paris has got to be rue Papillon—> rue Paradis—> rue de la Fidélité. That’s Butterfly Street to Paradise Street to Street of Fidelity.

Last Sunday, my untrendy restaurant club held its (now) annual offsite in Strasbourg. We lunched at the Finkstuebel—perfection! I had the jambonneau and cherries drenched in kirsch. My son and I watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” He was probably a touch young for some of the content, but is now familiar with the English-language term “holiday bonus,” while I learned that the film’s French title is, boringly, “Le Sapin à Boules.” The French supermarket chain Intermarche’s AI-free Christmas ad has gone viral and its makers are “proud to give the Americans a lesson.” I’m making Smitten Kitchen’s French Onion Baked Lentils and Farro, Mario Batali’s Chicken Cacciatore (sorry), and—the second I have an hour—Mokonuts Multigrain Chocolate Chip Cookies from this recipe David Lebovitz just sent out. Food, restaurants, presents, and a political fashion faux pas after the paywall…