Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

What is Bill & Rosa's Book Room ? 

First of all, for us, a Book Room is a comfortable place to spend some time. Think of it as the reading lounge on the ocean liners of yore with a western bent. Our maître-mots are

Read, Write, Relax. Buy, Borrow, Donate.

Bill & Rosa's Book Room has several aspects. It is first a USED BOOK SHOP and a LENDING LIBRARY. There are many novels of all genres for sale plus non-fiction, biographies, history, some poetry, cookbooks, cats, books on Paris or France, memoirs and children's books. Most books are in English, but also in French and even a few bilingual. Prices start at just 2€.

The 500 volume lending library has four sections :

The Sylvie and Henry Noullet Library: novels mostly in English Bill and Rosa's Library of the American West includes no…
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When the French are less French

When the French are less French This is the installment that our French hosts, cousins, counterparts, entourage have dreaded. When the French are less French. (We offer it, however, with tender feelings, hoping that will matter.) For years, FUSAC’s Hints for Newcomers-Hindsights for Oldtimers column has explored Anglo-French cultural and linguistic differences, the behavior and words that separate Parisians from Peorians, Niçois from New Yorkers, Cabourgais from Clevelanders. But while some of those differences are so profoundly embedded in millennia of national identity as to seem eternally immutable, others have begun melting away. Blame globalization. Blame the ubiquitousness of U.S. TV series. Blame students sent on exchange programs and executives sent on voyages d’affairs. Blame the “cool” appeal of Anglo jargon or the difficulty of fitting French verbosity into 140 characters. Whatever the reason, here is a (merely) four-category list of evidence that the gaping gulf is…
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The Saints on the map of Paris

Whether you walk across Paris or look at the metro or street map, you often see places named after a Saint. Such familiar names as St Genevieve, St Denis, St Vincent de Paul etc... Have you ever wondered who were these saints on the map of Paris and what their history was? We did! Here is a bit of history on the Saints on the map of Paris.

Sainte Geneviève

Logically the patron saint of Paris, St. Geneviève, is the one you come across most often. Her statue by Paul Landowski graces the Pont de La Tournelle in the 4th district. There is also one in Jardin du Luxembourg. She is on the front of Notre Dame as well. The Catholic church is celebrating the 1600th anniversary of Genevieve this year. A relic, her index finger, and her sarcophagus is in a chapel dedicated to her in the church of St Etienne du Mont a church in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte Geneviève where she lived and prayed.

She was born in Nanterre in about the …
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Click and Collect at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

Follow the links below to view pdf files of the current inventory of Bill and Rosa's Book Room. More than 7000 titles!

Available for Click and Collect pick up or delivery, just email fusac.office@gmail.com with your selection, we'll send you a link for payment via CB (or take check or cash when you get the books) and arrange for pick up. 

Are you in the Yvelines? Free delivery to these towns: Villepreux, Les Clayes-sous-Bois, Plaisir, Feucherolles, St Nom-la-Bretèche, Rennemoulin, Fontenay-le-Fleury, Noisy-le-Grand, Bailly. Minimum order 25€.

Anyone who orders 5+ books will receive a free copy of Elaine Sciolino's La Séduction (A book about France and the French and how seductions of all types, not just sexual, make them tick.)

The inventory list is organized by Sections and within the section by author. To find out more about a particular book you could copy the ISBN number and do an internet search. Nearly all of them …

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Virtual visit: Black & White: an aesthetic of photography

The Black & White exhibition has been hung, everything is on the walls, but the public is kept at bay.

After three (!) attempts to open the exhibition to the public "Black & White: an aesthetic of photography Collection of the National Library of France", the Rmn - Grand Palais has innovated and put virtual tours online until 18 June. Their hope is that the public will enjoy the exhibition anyway, but FUSAC reporter Judith Bluysen was not convinced.

The Noir & Blanc : une esthétique de la photographie exhibition presents black and white masterpieces from the photographic collections of the National Library of France (BnF), exceptionally brought together for the occasion. Nadar, Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Willy Ronis, Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, Wil…

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Brighten your day. Books are the perfect antidote for the gray and gloomy.

At Bill & Rosa’s Book Room, we have the perfect antidote for the gray and gloomy winter weather: books, a lot of them, to suit all tastes and demands! Iasmina has selected a few to help pass the time and brighten your day. All our books are pre-loved so you'll love the prices too!

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (4€), The Full Cupboard of Life (3€) The Kalahari Typing School for Men (4€) by Alexander McCall Smith

There’s nothing better to take your mind off the cold and the rain than a plunge into the world of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a series of detective novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Travel far away from rainy days with this novel set in Botswana and featuring Precious Ramotswe, the founder of the first and only female-run detective agency in the country. With unique characters, a good dose of kindness and vivid descriptions of Botswanan life, these are detective novels like no other. These thre…

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