Announcing the French Book Club
Le premier Club de lecture québécois, pour mes membres
I’m excited to announce a new feature of my membership: the first ever online Club de lecture (Book Club) for French learners interested in Quebec culture!
I keep insisting that reading is so important to develop a rich vocabulary, and to immerse yourself in the language.
But reading books in French can be difficult!
You don’t know where to start.
You don’t know which books to pick (are they too difficult, too easy?)
You lack the motivation to read every day.
You lack the historical context to understand the books.
The Club de lecture takes care of all these problems at once!
I will choose the books based on a series of strict criteria. They must be accessible but well-written and interesting, have an audiobook version, be easy to find, and contain interesting material for discussion.
In our first meeting, I’ll give you all the information you need to understand the book. Its style, historical context, the author, and we’ll analyze a chapter together to understand the vocabulary used.
In our second meeting, we’ll discuss the book together: its themes, what we enjoyed, etc. You’ll be motivated to read the book in order to participate in the meeting, but I’ll give you enough time to read the book (one month, on average).
Le Club de lecture, how does it work?
I did a search and found that a few teachers organize Reading Clubs in French for their students. They charge at least $30 per month, and some even charge hundreds of dollars per book.
I could sell this separately and I’m sure it would be successful that way, but I decided to make it part of my membership at no additional cost.
So the Club the lecture is free for my members! This is in addition to our conversation classes, courses, members-only podcasts and lessons, and everything else that’s included in my membership.
Here’s how it works
We will read ten books per year. For each book, we’ll meet twice. Once to prepare ourselves for reading the book, and once to discuss the book together.
You’ll have access to a complete document for each book with resources, a sample chapter, and the video of our first meeting, in case you missed it.
I won’t ask you to read the book aloud! the meetings are to explain what the book is about and then discuss it together.
Which books will we read?
Our first book is a little novel by Guillaume Vigneault, son of the great French-Canadian poet Gilles Vigneault, called Chercher le vent.
I chose this book because it’s a beautiful road trip novel, it contains some Quebecois dialogues (but without using too much slang), it’s beautifully written and doesn’t use the difficult literary past tense. So I think it will be a great book to read first. It’s also easy to find and there’s an audiobook version available.
Our first meeting will be next week and you’ll have an entire month to read the book. To join the Club the lecture, just upgrade to a paid subscription and you’ll be automatically signed up! We also have a Christmas Special right now so you’ll save 20% on your subscription.
In addition to the Club de lecture, you’ll also get access to:
Twice a week conversation classes on Zoom.
Access every article and podcast on my site (including formatted transcripts of my podcasts, and exclusive audios).
Get exclusive members-only podcasts and lessons.
Get my weekly curated French content recommendations, where I give you weekly suggestions of podcasts, videos, articles, and other French content that I have personally selected for you.
New video courses coming next year.
And much more!