{"product_id":"book-cwxc","title":"Monsieur Mediocre","description":"\u003cb\u003eA hilarious, candid account of what life in France is \u003ci\u003eactually\u003c\/i\u003e like, from a writer for \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eGQ\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmericans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of \u003ci\u003efruits de mer.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student. And then, after falling for and marrying a French waitress he met in New York, von Sothen moved to Paris. But fifteen years in, he's finally ready to admit his mother's Paris is mostly a fantasy. In this hilarious and delightful collection of essays, von Sothen walks us through real life in Paris--not only myth-busting our Parisian daydreams but also revealing the inimitable and too often invisible pleasures of family life abroad. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRelentlessly funny and full of incisive observations, \u003ci\u003eMonsieur Mediocre\u003c\/i\u003e is ultimately a love letter to France--to its absurdities, its history, its ideals--but it's a very \u003ci\u003eFrench\u003c\/i\u003e love letter: frank, smoky, unsentimental. It is a clear-eyed ode to a beautiful, complex, contradictory country from someone who both eagerly and grudgingly calls it home.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49329403167024,"sku":"BDcwxc","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/537227-cwxc-Square.jpg?v=1733743854","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-cwxc","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}