Used book – Sacrés Français: An American Looks at Us, Ted Stanger

Since the war in Iraq, it's been a major falling-out between the French and the Americans. It's not the first, and probably not the last spat. And now an American who chose to live in Paris decides to tell us what he thinks of France. As an "Ohio Huron," Ted Stanger has delved into our habits, our ways of life and thought. Far from responding to a prevailing anti-American sentiment that doesn't spare him, he tries to help us understand this great misunderstanding that makes the French and Americans allies-enemies. Imagine his astonishment at the 35-hour work week in a country where restaurants and pharmacies are always closed when you need them. From the reign of the car to our apprehension in the face of the emerging 21st century, nothing escaped him. Full of anecdotes, impertinent and funny, uncompromising and often polemical, "Sacrés Français!" makes us both laugh and think. It's impossible not to recognize ourselves in the mirror he holds up to us.