Paul Fournel

There's a lot of good to be said about publishing, mainly about the food. The books, though - Robert Dubois feels as if he's read the books, but still they keep coming back to him, the same old books just by new authors. Maybe he's ready to settle into the end of his career, like it's a tipsy afternoon after a working lunch. But then he is confronted with a gift: a piece of technology, a gizmo, a reader... Dear Reader takes a wry, affectionate look at the world of publishing, books and authors, and is a very funny, moving story about the passing of the old and the excitement of the new.

Dear Reader

A book like no other, Paul Fournel?s Need for the Bike conducts readers into a very personal world of communication and connection whose center is the bicycle, and where all people and things pass by way of the bike. In compact and suggestive prose, Fournel conveys the experience of cycling?from the initial charm of early outings to the dramas of the devoted cyclist. ø An extended meditation on cycling as a practice of life, the book recalls a country doctor who will not anesthetize the young Fournel after he impales himself on a downtube shifter, speculates about the difference between animals that would like to ride bikes (dogs, for instance) and those that would prefer to watch (cows, marmots), and reflects on the fundamental absurdity of turning over the pedals mile after excruciating mile. At the same time, Fournel captures the sound, smell, feel, and language of the reality and history of cycling, in the mountains, in the city, escaping the city, in groups, alone, suffering, exhausted, exhilarated. ø In his attention to the pleasures of cycling, to the specific ?grain? of different cycling experiences, and to the inscription of these experiences in the body?s cycling memory, Fournel portrays cycling as a descriptive universe, colorful, lyrical, inclusive, exclusive, complete.

Need for the Bike

Jacques Jouet

Harry Mathews

Italo Calvino

Claude Berge

Texts from the Bibliotheque Oulipienne (Anti-Classics of Dada.)

Oulipo Laboratory

La novità

Enfourcher son premier vélo, c'est entrer dans une langue que l'on mettra sa vie à assimiler, c'est transformer chaque geste en un secret pour le piéton. Prêt à mouliner, prêt à gicler, à coincer, à bâcher, à sucer les roues, à pointer le nez à la fenêtre, prêt à avaler des bornes et des bornes pour entrer dans le clan édénique des moelleux... Enfourcher un vélo, c'est entrer dans une histoire et une légende que l'on découvrira dans mille et mille numéros de L'Equipe. La divine solitude du cycliste est peuplée d'ombres que le soleil étire sur le grain des routes. Assis sur ma première selle, j'apprenais à sentir le souffle du grand peloton des cyclistes du temps et du monde. Enfourcher un vélo, ce n'est pas monter sur une machine pour l'oublier, c'est, au contraire, entamer un débat permanent avec elle. Au moment où je coince dans une bosse, je lance un regard inquiet sur le pédalier du salaud qui me double : j'en étais sûr, il est ovale et il a des manivelles de 175 ! Enfourcher un vélo, c'est prendre possession du paysage. D'abord celui de ma roue avant, ensuite celui des jambes de mon père (qui sont les jambes que je connais le mieux au monde), enfin le vaste paysage quand l'équilibre et la forme sont là.

Besoin de vélo

Supergatto

There's a lot of good to be said about publishing, mainly about the food. The books, though - Robert Dubois feels as if he's read the books, but still they keep coming back to him, the same old books just by new authors. Maybe he's ready to settle into the end of his career, like it's a tipsy afternoon after a working lunch. But then he is confronted with a gift: a piece of technology, a gizmo, a reader... Dear Reader takes a wry, affectionate look at the world of publishing, books and authors, and is a very funny, moving story about the passing of the old and the excitement of the new. Paul Fournel was born in 1947. He worked as a publisher with Ramsay and Seghers, and chaired the Société des gens de lettres. He was head of the Alliance Française in San Francisco, and a cultural attaché in Cairo and London. He now writes full time and cycles during the rest of the day. As a third full-time job, he is the Provisionally Definitive Secretary and President of the literary collective known as Oulipo, whose members have included George Perec and Italo Calvino, among many others. He is also the author of numerous novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, and poetry. David Bellos is Director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University, where he is also Professor of French and Comparative Literature. He has won many awards for his translations of Georges Perec, Ismail Kadare and others, including the Man Booker Translator Award, and received the Prix Goncourt de la biographie for George Perec: A Life in Words.

Tous les lecteurs de la Beat Generation connaissent les poèmes de Jason Murphy, mais le bruit court qu’il aurait composé un roman, écrit sur un rouleau avant même le célèbre Sur la route de Jack Kerouac. Certains affirment que le professeur Marc Chantier l’aurait eu un moment en sa possession.Un éditeur et une étudiante s’envolent sur la trace du fameux « scroll » de Paris à San Francisco. Chacun a ses raisons, chacun a ses chemins, chacun a ses moyens et c’est à qui arrivera le premier...Que cherche-t-on quand on s’intéresse de près à un auteur de la Beat Generation comme Jason Murphy ? Veut-on percer le mystère d’un texte parmi cent mille ? Le secret d’un homme en révolte ? Les différences avec Kerouac ou Ginsberg ? Les mystères d’une époque et d’un lieu devenus mythiques ? Cherche-t-on une vérité ou un mensonge ? Se cherche-t-on soi-même ?Chacun des personnages de ce roman construit un Jason Murphy à sa mesure ajoutant à son mythe et épaississant son mystère à mesure que s’éloignent les fumées du « Summer of love » dans le Golden Gate Park de San Francisco. Ainsi se tournent les pages d’une histoire de la littérature.

Jason Murphy

Shortlisted for the Sports Book Awards 2018 for Biography of the Year and Cycling Book of the Year There are things he does alone, and things that he alone does. Jacques Anquetil was a cyclist with an aristocratic demeanor and a relaxed attitude to rules and morals. His womanising and frank admissions of doping appalled 1960s French society, even as his five Tour de France wins enthralled it. Paul Fournel was besotted with him from the start ("Too young to understand, I was nevertheless old enough to admire") and followed Anquetil's career with the passion of a fan and the eye of a poet. In this stunningly original biography of a complex and divisive character, Fournel - author of the seminal Vlo (or Need for the Bike)- blends the story of Anquetil's life with scenes from his own, to create a classic of cycling literature.

The legend of the controversial Tour de France champion

Anquetil, Alone

La stagiaire entre dans le bureau de Robert Dubois, l'éditeur, et lui tend une tablette électronique, une liseuse. Il la regarde, il la soupèse, l'allume et sa vie bascule. Pour la première fois depuis Gutenberg, le texte et le papier se séparent et c'est comme si son cœur se fendait en deux.

La Liseuse

Paz Barroso

Supergato

Jean de Brunhoff

Laurent de Brunhoff

Imaginé à l'occasion des 75 ans de Babar, ce portfolio est composé d'un livret qui retrace l'histoire de Babar à travers une préface inédite de Laurent de Brunhoff et un très beau texte de l'écrivain Paul Fournel. Dix grands noms de l'illustration pour la jeunesse d'aujourd'hui lui ont également rendu hommage à travers des illustrations originales et inédites : Thomas Baas, Philippe Bertrand, Marc Boutavant, Soledad Bravi, Marc Daniau, Régis Faller, Loustal, Jean-François Martin, Nathalie Novi et Eric Puybaret. Un superbe hommage pour ce héros qui, depuis sa naissance en 1931, ne cesse d'enchanter petits et grands.

Paul Fournel

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