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| May 06, 2025 |
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| Author William Alexander to speak at Cornwall Public Library |
from the Cornwall Public Library
CORNWALL, NY – On Monday, October 20th, Cornwall resident and noted author, William Alexander, will be at Cornwall Public Library to discuss his latest release: Flirting With French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart. The program will take place from 7:00 to 8:00 pm in the library’s community room.
William Alexander is more than a Francophile. He wants to be French. There’s one small obstacle though: he doesn’t speak la langue française. In Flirting with French, Alexander sets out to conquer the language he loves. But will it love him back?
Alexander eats, breathes, and sleeps French (even conjugating in his dreams). He travels to France, where mistranslations send him bicycling off in all sorts of wrong directions, and he nearly drowns in an immersion class in Provence, where, faced with the riddle of masculine breasts, feminine beards, and a turkey cutlet of uncertain gender, he starts to wonder whether he should’ve taken up golf instead of French. While playing hooky from grammar lessons and memory techniques, Alexander reports on the riotous workings of the Académie française, the four-hundred-year-old institution charged with keeping the language pure; explores the science of human communication, learning why it’s harder for fifty-year-olds to learn a second language than it is for five-year-olds; and, frustrated with his progress, explores an IBM research lab, where he trades barbs with a futuristic hand-held translator.
Does he succeed in becoming fluent? Readers will be as surprised as Alexander is to discover that, in a fascinating twist, studying French may have had a far greater impact on his life than actually learning to speak it ever would.
Mr. Alexander’s previous releases include The $64 Tomato and 52 Loaves. His newest book will be available to purchase through the Friends of Cornwall Library, and the author will autograph copies.
395 Hudson Street
Cornwall, NY 12518
Phone 845-534-8282
Fax 845-534-3827
www.cornwallpubliclibrary.org
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