Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job: _________________ It involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul's French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. Preferably in the back of Paul's Mini. But as the little car battles from New York to Miami, leg-room turns out to be the least of Paul's troubles. His work is being sabotaged, his tour plans are in tatters, and his love life becomes a Franco-American war zone. And as Paul knows better than anyone, when you mix love and war - merde happens...

Merde hits the U.S! In the third volume of his escapades, Paul West is driving across the USA in a Mini, and feeling just as foreign as he ever did in France. He has accepted a job promoting the UK as a tourist destination. His tiny car is supposed to symbolize Britain's image - self-deprecating, fun, stylish but not snobbish.

In the acclaimed third installment of the popular Merde series, Paul West winds up stuck in American, chin-deep in financial trouble. He and his French girlfriend set off to America, with hopes of veering off the path to fiscal ruin. But as the not-so-dynamic duo stumble toward Los Angeles, via Boston, Miami, New Orleans, and Las Vegas, Paul's well-oiled plans for success, of course, turn to merde: the couple takes on carjackers, old flames, and liaisons dangereuses. The result is a madcap, hilarious adventure, an acerbic tour through America, France, England, and the places that make us who we are.

This international bestseller from the author of A Year in the Merde “combines the gaffes of Bridget Jones with the boldness of James Bond” (Publishers Weekly). When the glorious oceanographer Gloria Monday convinces Paul West to travel to the swank beaches of southern France—where she’s investigating caviar-smuggling cartels—he assumes he’s about to have the time of his life. But for West, France has always been full of surprises underfoot, and this trip is no exception to the rule. He’s soon dragged into an undercover investigation that goes all the way to the top and leaves him feeling sometimes like James Bond, sometimes like Inspector Clouseau. Dial M for Merde is a comic caper that pokes fun at French society at every level, from pompous politicians to grumpy waitstaff.

The latest episode in Stephen Clarke's almost-true account of his adventures as an expat in France is just as winning as the first. This "anti-Mayle" will have readers chortling over their croissants and café au lait while Paul West struggles to solve the mysteries inherent in life in France. What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Is it really polite to sleep with your boss's mistress? And why are there no public health warnings on French nude beaches? Paul discovers how to judge a French vacationer by the rustiness of his bicycle; opens his English tearoom; and finally understands why Parisian waiters are so cranky. Just in time for spring in Paris, find out if Paul finds the perfect French mademoiselle or if it all ends in merde!

A Year in the Merde is the almost-true account of the author's adventures as an expat in Paris. Based on his own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action-and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit", the book is narrated by Paul West, a twenty-seven-year-old Brit who is brought to Paris by a French company to open a chain of British "tea rooms." He must manage of a group of lazy, grumbling French employees, maneuver around a treacherous Parisian boss, while lucking into a succession of lusty girlfriends (one of whom happens to be the boss's morally challenged daughter). He soon becomes immersed in the contradictions of French culture: the French are not all cheese-eating surrender monkeys, though they do eat a lot of smelly cheese, and they are still in shock at being stupid enough to sell Louisiana, thus losing the chance to make French the global language. The book will also tell you how to get the best out of the grumpiest Parisian waiter, how to survive a French business meeting, and how not to buy a house in the French countryside. The author originally wrote A Year in the Merde just for fun and self-published it in France in an English-language edition. Weeks later, it had become a word-of-mouth hit for expats and the French alike. With translation rights now sold in eleven countries and already a bestseller in the UK and France, Stephen Clarke is clearly a Bill Bryson (or a Peter Mayle...) for a whole new generation of readers who can never quite decide whether they love-or love to hate-the French.

The author of A Year in the Merde and Talk to the Snail offers a highly biased and hilarious view of French history in this international bestseller. Things have been just a little awkward between Britain and France ever since the Norman invasion in 1066. Fortunately—after years of humorously chronicling the vast cultural gap between the two countries—author Stephen Clarke is perfectly positioned to investigate the historical origins of their occasionally hostile and perpetually entertaining pas de deux. Clarke sets the record straight, documenting how French braggarts and cheats have stolen credit rightfully due their neighbors across the Channel while blaming their own numerous gaffes and failures on those same innocent Brits for the past thousand years. Deeply researched and written with the same sly wit that made A Year in the Merde a comic hit, this lighthearted trip through the past millennium debunks the notion that the Battle of Hastings was a French victory (William the Conqueror was really a Norman who hated the French) and pooh-poohs French outrage over Britain’s murder of Joan of Arc (it was the French who executed her for wearing trousers). He also takes the air out of overblown Gallic claims, challenging the provenance of everything from champagne to the guillotine to prove that the French would be nowhere without British ingenuity. Brits and Anglophiles of every national origin will devour Clarke’s decidedly biased accounts of British triumph and French ignominy. But 1000 Years of Annoying the French will also draw chuckles from good-humored Francophiles as well as “anyone who’s ever encountered a snooty Parisian waiter or found themselves driving on the Boulevard Périphérique during August” (The Daily Mail). A bestseller in Britain, this is an entertaining look at history that fans of Sarah Vowell are sure to enjoy, from the author the San Francisco Chronicle has called “the anti-Mayle . . . acerbic, insulting, un-PC, and mostly hilarious.”