New: Postal loans
We are now offering our members who live in the UK a postal loans service.
This service is charged in addition to your membership fee. Each postal loan consists of up to 3 items between CDs, magazines and books + 2 DVDs for 3 weeks.
You can choose amongst 3 different options (all renewable during the membership year) the one that will best suit your needs:
£10: 4 postal loans per membership year
£20: 8 postal loans per membership year
£30: 12 postal loans per membership year
Please note that is is your responsibility to pay for the items to be returned to the Library in time for its due date. Items may be renewed if not recalled by another user.
Check the Library catalogues to make your selection and contact the librarian to place your order by phone 0131 225 5366 or email.
New titles
La vérité sur l’affaire Harry Quebert - Joël Dicker - Editions de Fallois- 2012
Spring 2008 in New York. While murmurs of the Presidential election move through America, a young successful writer, Marcus Goldman, is tormented: unable to write a new novel that he must hand in to his editor in a few months time.
His time is nearly up when suddenly everything changes. His old friend and Professor Harry Quebert, one of the most respected writers in the country, has his past catch up with him and is accused of having murdered a young woman, Nola Kellergan, with whom he had an affair in 1975.
Convinced of Harry’s innocence, Marcus drops everything and goes to New Hampshire to carry out an investigation. To prove Harry’s innocence he must answer three questions: Who killed Nola Kellergan? What happened in New Hampshire in the spring of 1975? How does one write a successful novel?
This thriller set in America is a reflection on the country through its modern society, literature, justice and the media. This novel has been dubbed the next global phenomenon by NAWE, the young writers’ hub, and has won the prestigious ‘Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française 2012’ as well as the ‘Goncourt des Lycéens.’
Many other critics have been quick to praise this original and fascinating novel, including L’express, who refer to Dicker as a writer who has been able to master the American thriller but who is able to subvert archetypes and codes common to this genre.
Oh... - Philippe Djian - Gallimard - 2012
Oh… transports the reader through 30 days of a life which offers no respite, where memories, sex and death spark off of one another at every moment. Paris Match describes ‘Oh…’ as a powerful novel written by an author with a fertile imagination who continues to astonish the world with his unusual and fascinating works, 20 years after 37°2 le matin.
Djian’s novel is guided by his narrator, Michèle who, at the end of her 50’s, is seemingly living a normal life. The novel focuses on the difficult relationships she has with her mother and son and secrets which are never spoken of. This novel, which won ‘Le prix Interallié 2012’, leaves the reader reflecting over the numerous events which take place as the narrator falls into a spiral of sex and death. Le Figaro praises this work as a novel which is illustrative of our times and which provokes a metaphysical vertigo and highlights the failure of a certain kind of feminism and a form of politically correct sexuality.
Notre-Dame du Nil - Scholastique Mukasonga, - Gallimard, collection Continents Noirs - 2012
A girls’ school sits perched on the Congo-Nile divide in Rwanda, near the source of the great Egyptian river. The families hope that this isolated, religiously baptized haven, far from the temptations of the capital, will allow their daughters to remain virginal for an arranged marriage based on lineage.
This tight knit community where these school girls must live is soon surrounded by the bullying power of the Hutus, friendship, desire and hatred which cut across their lives. Political tensions, plots, the incitement for racial murders, sly persecutions which become overt, the dreams and disillusions, the desire to survive encompasses this existential microcosm, a prelude to the Rwandan genocide told through a novel without fault.
This novel won the ‘Prix Renaudot 2012’ and is described by critics as an incredible novel which tells of the mounting horror and complex story of this area of Rwanda which Mukasonga recounts with great finesse (L’express). Le Point outlines Mukasonga’s own attachment to this novel due its inextricable links to the Rwandan genocide and the destruction of a country.
L’Oreille musicale
Once a month, the library organise a French rendez-vous in the Bistrot for music lovers. Come and share your knowledge and your favourite CDs, explore the collection of the multimedia Library and discuss a specific theme in a musical atmosphere.
Visit the Events page for details about the next rendez-vous.
Reading group
Join the literary discussion! Bring and discuss in French your favourite books and discover the other members’ own favourites in this relaxed and friendly new workshop. Find out more about the group here.
French Tales for Kids
The tales reading for kids are back! Bring your children along to the library for one of the three short stories in French read every Saturday morning by the librarians. An enjoyable way to familiarize them with French language!
Three sessions of 15 minutes each: 10.45 am, 11.45 am and 12.45 pm.
Admission free.
For more information, please contact us: 0131 220 7758 or library ifecosse.org.uk
Fines
From 1 September 2012, fines will be implemented at the French Institute Library.
Rates:
1) For overdue items:
£0.20 per day per item
Maximum fine: £15.
2) For lost or damaged items:
fixed rate of £15 per item.
Card block:
Patrons with a fine of £15 will not be allowed to borrow, renew or request items until payment has been received.
’Coups de coeurs’ of the librarians
Regularly the librarians share their ’coups de coeurs’ with you. Every week, discover here a selection of classics, DVDs, CDs, and chidren books to help you make your own choice in the library.