'The French still imbue everything they do with a deep affection for sensuality, subtlety, mystery, and play,' writes Sciolino an emphasis on what she terms the 'process' of seduction, rather than hurrying toward the result, as Americans do. Witty and keen-eyed, Sciolino (Persian Mirrors) is an American journalist living in Paris who feels by turns charmed and irritated by the French 'civilizing arts.' The French are famous for their exquisite food, wine, perfume, fashion, style, literature, and chateaux, among many other of life s delights, as well as notorious for their laissez-faire attitude toward adultery. Pull up a chair and let Elaine Sciolino seduce you. La Seduction will charm you and encourage you to lower your defenses about the French. She demystifies the French way of life in an entertaining and personal narrative that carries us from the neighborhood shops of Paris to the halls of government, from the gardens of Versailles to the agricultural heartland. In La Seduction, Sciolino gives us an inside view of how seduction works in all areas, analyzing its limits as well as its power. While sexual repartee and conquest remain at the heart of seduction, for the French seduction has become a philosophy of life, even an ideology, that can confuse outsiders. Seduction plays a crucial role in how the French relate to one another-not just in romantic relationships but also in how they conduct business, enjoy food and drink, define style, engage in intellectual debate, elect politicians, and project power around the world. But Elaine Sciolino, the longtime Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, has discovered that seduction is much more than a game to the French: it is the key to understanding France. The hidden truth about the French way of life: it's all about seduction-its rules, its pleasures, its secretsįrance is a seductive country, seductive in its elegance, its beauty, its sensual pleasures, and its joie de vivre.

French Seduction by Laura Hault