Madame Espinasse is a treat to read! This short, self-published book contains items from her popular "French Word-a-day" newsletter/online blog. For those unfamiliar with her format, she presents the reader with a French word, its definition, a sample sentence or relevant quote in both French and English, and then a personal story written in English with some French vocabulary thrown in for good measure. It is a fun way to learn and/or keep up with your French, while also seeing a bit of French life through the eyes of an American-born French wife. Espinasse is delightfully self-abasing and modest and her stories really give you the sense of the "everyman" -- something to identify with easily. The book is formatted with words presented alphabetically, rather than the order they appeared in the newsletter. I suppose this could be helpful for readers who want to skip to certain words, but I just read straight through the whole book from cover to cover. My only caveat: this book could have benefited from a good editor. There were a number of typos and other issues interspersed. Otherwise, this book is definitely on my recommend list! ( )