Adopting the French attitude

Whilst in the middle of 'Passion', I suddenly felt that it was all getting a bit too much. Mary Shelley was spending far too much time worrying about the fidelity of her lover/husband (depending on how far I'd read), Byron was being suitably Byronic with his sister, and Lady Caroline Lamb had seemingly gone completely mad and was being very tedious about it.

Time for break. Or as the Monty Python boys would have it - now for something completely different! Bemoaning the lack of anything completely different, my mother handed me 'Two Lipsticks and a Lover' by Helena Frith Powell. Pushing aside my turned up nose, she assured me it was a very good read, and so I sat down and immersed myself in all the various attitudes the French have to clothes, appearance, love, sex (quite different to Love, and more destructive) and education.

It's memoir, rather than chick lit, which is perhaps why I like it so much. And I found myself suddenly immersed and absolutely adamant that I had to have matching underwear all the time, different cleansers depending on whether I was wearing make up or not, and on no account was I to wear trainers or flat when I could wear heels.

Of course, not much of this has stuck, but I remain impressed by the light hearted but interesting look at another culture. I can't say I'm surprised that Helena Frith Powell found herself changing into a French woman.

It was a good book to break the passions of the romantics with, and pushed me into a reading frenzy. More books to come, I'm back on a roll people!