Armistice Day is celebrated every year on 11 November to commemorate the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.

The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations, to commemorate those members of the armed forces who were killed during war.

The Initial or Very First Armistice Day was held at Buckingham Palace commencing with King George V hosting a “Banquet in Honour of The President of the French Republic” during the evening hours of November 10, 1919. The First Official Armistice Day was subsequently held on the Grounds of Buckingham Palace on the Morning of November 11th. 1919. This would set the trend for a day of Remembrance for decades to come.

After World War II, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in the United States and to Remembrance Day in the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Armistice Day remains an official holiday in France and Belgium, very well respected and celebrated.

So today for Armistice Day, I would like to highlight the books presented on France Book Tours related to World War I and World War II.

Please click on the book cover to access the tours and the many reviews:

and a special warrior, further back in history

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE WAR NOVEL?

Today is the official release day of

The Conversation

Author Jean d’Ormesson

on Tour

December 2-6

with his

The Conversation:
The Night Napoleon Changed The World

Translated by Timothy Bent

[historical novel]

 Release date: November 6, 2013
by Arcade Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-61145-905-0
also available as an ebook

***

If you would LOVE to read
this historical novel
and are able to post your
review
on YOUR blog
on one of these days,
December 2-6
please send me an email at francebooktours at gmail dot com
and fill in this form (only once)

***

SYNOPSIS

After pulling the French people back from the abyss of chaos and misrule, Napoleon Bonaparte is on the brink of declaring himself emperor. “An empire is a Republic that has been enthroned,” he says. And so history is made.

As Napoleon stands at the precipice of his new empire, Jean d’Ormesson’s novel The Conversation: The Night Napoleon Changed the World captures a fictional conversation in which the thirty-year-old, struggling between revolutionary ideals and his overwhelming thirst for power, declares his secret intention to ascend the throne.

Second Consul Jean-Jacques Cambacérès, a brilliant law scholar and close ally, bears witness to the birth of this self-created legend: a man who left his mark upon time not through birth, but with ambition, and whose hubris is still invoked as a cautionary tale. Their imagined conversation brilliantly captures the tenuous moment when one man’s dream becomes reality. History, of course, records Napoleon’s dizzying triumphs and subsequent fall. [provided by the publisher]

***

Jean d’Ormesson is the author of more than fifteen books, has a PhD in philosophy, graduated from the École Normale, and is a distinguished member of the Académie Française. He lives in Paris.

Timothy Bent has translated a number of books from French, including Brassaï’s Henry Miller: The Paris Years, Emmanuel Carrère’s I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick, and Stéphane Audeguy’s novel, The Theory of Clouds. A former editor at Arcade Publishing, St. Martin’s Press, and Harcourt, he is currently Executive Editor, Trade, at Oxford University Press in New York, where he focuses upon history, biography, and current events.

***

PRAISE FOR THE CONVERSATION

“D’ORMESSON SEIZES THE FRAGILE MOMENT WHEN A MAN’S AMBITION TURNS THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN.” —LE POINT

“In this imaginary conversation between men, a sort of docufiction, d’Ormesson focuses brilliantly on the man who would be emperor.” —Le Récit

for each book you review
for France Book Tours,
you will be entered into a monthly giveaway
to win the featured book of the month
OR a $15 gift card of your choice!