READING

I've been following Emma Beddington's blog for a number of years so it was wonderful to read this book at the weekend and understand in a deeper way the journey she has travelled in her 'pursuit' of happiness.

The book takes the reader from the beginning of Emma's fascination with all things French in the library of the Quaker school she attended in York.  The librarian, strangely for a Quaker school, had organized a subscription to the French edition of Elle magazine.

From school to France, a French boyfriend, university in England, back to France, back to England and on and on, she explores themes of displacement, not only by the environment she lives in, whether that be England or France, but also the displacement brought by living and working with a language that is not your first.

And underscroring all of this is the grief following the death of her mother in a dreadful accident.

I can see a movie.  Perhaps Keira Knightley to play Emma?  And her boyfriend?  I'm not really up on my French actors, but perhaps Olivier Martinez?

Go!  Read the book!  It's wonderful.