Après-Midi Recap

It wasn’t surprising that we had a packed house to hear Scott Carpenter talk about two of his books: French Like Moi and Paris Lost & Found—a Memoir of Love.

I introduced him and his books as the funniest books I’ve ever read, then Scott began to tell the story about the books and proceeded to read from them. The first excerpt, loosely titled “The Turd,” brought me to tears just thinking about it, and then the crowd laughed just as hard as I had as he began to read about how a human turd was found in the “local poubelles”—the room where the garbage cans are kept in his building and what took place on the spot with two of his neighbors.

That was just the beginning. We all laughed until we cried. He has a brilliant way of bringing the little nuances of life in Paris to strike a chord with anyone who has ever experienced them. Just as he began to tell a story about wanting to exchange a lightbulb he had purchased of the wrong kind, the howls began—we’ve all been there/done that—gone head-to-head with French bureaucracy and customer service. He brought the house down.

Watch the video and tell me if what I say here isn’t so? And be sure to get a copy of each of them!

More about Scott Carpenter and the books:

Maybe it was the early job at a uranium mine. Perhaps it’s his fascination with the Paris catacombs. For whatever reason, acclaimed author Scott Dominic Carpenter relishes telling stories from beneath life’s mundane surface.

After his hilarious introduction to Paris in French Like Moi, Scott returns to the scene of the crime with more tales of intrigue. This time, though, he’s reeling from loss—and hoping the City of Light will come to his rescue.