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*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
*Find any sentence, (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it. *Click on the logo here to access the host page.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky.
*Add the post url, not your blog url. It’s that simple.
*** I will post for this meme a passage from a book presented on France Book Tours ***
Click on the book cover to know more about the book
page 56
WHAT DO YOU THINK? WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN THIS SHORT EXCEPT?
Marie Antoinette has remained atop the popular cultural landscape for centuries for the daring in style and fashion that she brought to 18th century France. For the better part of the queen’s reign, one man was entrusted with the sole responsibility of ensuring that her coiffure was at its most ostentatious best. Who was this minister of fashion who wielded such tremendous influence over the queen’s affairs? Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, The Queen, and the Revolutioncharts the rise of Leonard Autié from humble origins as a country barber in the south of France to the inventor of the Pouf and premier hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette.
By unearthing a variety of sources from the 18th and 19th centuries, including memoirs (including Léonard’s own), court documents, and archived periodicals the author, Professor Will Bashor, tells Autié’s mostly unknown story. He chronicles Leonard’s story, the role he played in the life of his most famous client, and the chaotic and history-making world in which he rose to prominence. Besides his proximity to the queen, Leonard also had a most fascinating life filled with sex (he was the only man in a female dominated court), seduction, intrigue, espionage, theft, exile, treason, and possibly, execution. The French press reported that Léonard was convicted of treason and executed in Paris in 1793. However, it was also recorded that Léonard, after receiving a pension from the new King Louis XVIII, died in Paris in March 1820. Granted, Leonard was known as the magician of Marie-Antoinette’s court, but how was it possible that he managed to die twice? [provided by the author]
WATCH THE TRAILER
***
PRAISE FOR Marie Antoinette’s Head:
The Royal Hairdresser, The Queen, and the Revolution
“Bashor continues to offer original perspectives on the last Bourbons and those who served them. In this dual biography, Marie Antoinette emerges through the eyes and “magic comb” of Léonard Autié, her gifted hairdresser …Marie Antoinette’s Head not only entertains, it conveys both the events and the character of the age.”
– Reed Benhamou, PhD, Professor Emerita, Indiana University
“This is a new and riveting account, in a clear and attractive style, of significant historical events that lead to the French Revolution of 1789, as seen through the eyes of Marie Antoinette’s ambitious hairdresser…”
– Aleksandra Gruzinska, School of International Letters and Cultures, Arizona State University
“I have nothing but praise. The book is so well researched, so well written, so totally readable that it will appeal to a very wide public….”
– David Wingeate Pike, American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Paris [on the author’s webpage]
***
Will Bashor has a doctorate in International Relations from the American Graduate School in Paris,
and he teaches at Franklin University, Columbus, Ohio.
His interests have ranged over many fields,
among them the study of international law and business, linguistics,
cultural anthropology, and European history.
As a member of the Society for French Historical Studies,
he attended its annual meeting sponsored by Harvard University in Cambridge in 2013.
[Provided by the author.]
Visit his website, and connect with him:
***
VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE
Monday, February 3
Review + Excerpt + Giveaway
at I Am, Indeed
Tuesday, February 4
Review + Interview + Giveaway
at Words And Peace
She is the most fascinating woman you’ve probably never heard of. Toto Koopman (1908 – 1991) was the world’s first celebrated bi-racial model, who was known for her work with Vogueand Chanel; acted as a spy for the Resistance, served time in WWII concentration camps; and played a pivotal role in launching the career of Francis Bacon. She was fluent in five languages, led a jet set life in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, associated with royalty, politicians, artists and other bon vivants. She was openly bisexualand beholden to no one, vowing never to marry.
She was affectionately known as Miss K and here is her story.
THE MANY LIVES OF MISS K: Toto Koopman – Model, Muse, Spy explores the allure of a freethinking and courageous woman who, fiercely protective of her independence, was sought after by many but truly known by very few. Author Jean-Noël Liaut chases his enigmatic subject through the many roles and lives she inhabited, both happy and tragic. Though her beauty, charisma, and taste for the extraordinary made her an exuberant fixture of Paris fashion and café society, her intelligence and steely sense of self drove her toward bigger things, culminating in espionage during WWII, for which she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Ravensbrück. After the horrors of the camp, she found solace in Erica Brausen, the German art dealer who launched the career of Francis Bacon, and the two women lived out their lives together surrounded by cultural luminaries like Edmonde Charles-Roux and Luchino Visconti. But even in her later decades, Toto remained impossible for anyone to truly possess.
Toto Koopman is a new addition to the pantheon of iconoclastic women whose biographies intrigue and inspire modern-day readers. Like her contemporaries Lee Miller or Vita Sackville-West, Toto lived with an independent spirit more typical of the men of her generation, moving in the worlds of fashion, society, art, and politics with an insouciant ease that would stir both admiration and envy even today. Sphinx-like and tantalizing, Toto conducted her life as a game, and each page of her biography conveys audacity and style.[provided by the publisher]
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Click on the book cover to know more about the bookpage 56
January 24, 2014
WordsAndPeace
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