our selection of books for your Christmas gifts

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A little book for the holidays? Here is a (non-exhaustive) selection of books written by authors from the region.

• Living in Toulouse 1950-1980 (Mathieu Arnal, Privat editions, 143 pages, 27.90 euros)

The decades 1950 to 1980! Journalist passionate about history, collaborator ofToulouse News, Mathieu Arnal revisits four decades and offers a journey as sentimental as nostalgic into the Pink city of yesteryear.
Mythical victories on the lawn of Stadiumwild jazz concerts at the Druggists’ Tourbucolic and family walks in Plant garden… The author shows with tenderness and pride the incomparable heritage and art of living of Toulouse which make it one of the favorite cities of the French.

• The Arcane Chronicles (Vanessa Nardari, 313 pages, 17 euros).

Vanessa Nardari is an author known as @lm_dcartes on social media. For her first novel, she chose Toulousehis birthplace, to set the scene. Although some places were created from scratch, the Toulouse atmosphere is omnipresent, offering an authentic setting for this initiatory adventure. In addition to the Pink City, Occitanie is also highlighted.

In this atypical novel, each character embodies a major arcana of the tarot. Through their stories, a true picture of life is revealed, with its joys, its sorrows, its challenges and its victories. These 22 destinies intersect and intertwine, creating a complex web where personal development is at the heart of each plot.

With The Arcane Chronicles, I wanted to offer a novel that feels good, that inspires and accompanies readers on their personal journey. I share several passions there, including that of tarot while including nods to my city.

• America and its funny stories (Mickaël Mamou, 144 pages, 12.99 euros).

Native of Mazamet (Tarn) and Toulouse by adoption, Mickaël Mamou has another source of inspiration: the USA. A country that he has traveled for 25 years and from which he has drawn these 200 authentic news items and incredible stories taken from the biggest media in Uncle Sam’s country: a woman marries, without knowing it, to the murderer of her eight children ; an employee is fired because of her protruding breasts; a man with 1,500 arrests in his life… Cases illustrated by his friend Jean-Luc Valéra.

• Autopsy of the assassin (Daniel Soucaze, Mareuil éditions, 357 pages, 19.95 euros).

Director of investigations for nearly a decade within the national gendarmerienotably in Toulouse, Daniel Soucaze crossed paths with Patrice Alègre. He was the first gendarme to investigate this serial killer and here relates his terrible hunt from Haute-Garonne to Paris, via Spain and Germany.
In charge for a time of investigations into the disappearance of Martine Escadeillasa 33-year-old cold case from Toulouse, he lifts the veil on the dangerousness of other equally appalling murderers whose cruel actions and, sometimes, bursts of humanity he describes.

• Police I’m listening – the pearls of the 17th! (Philippe Baccus, Opportun éditions, 368 pages, 12.90 euros)

Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 17 is an emergency number…or not! some use and abuse this free number to confide their fears, denounce a neighbor, predict the future or relieve themselves of their neuroses of all kinds.
Police officer in Toulouse, Philippe Baccus is on the other end of the line when the ringtone rings. He has brought together in this book the funniest, incongruous and astonishing calls of his career. Ubuesque dialogues (or deaf), small beads…And as in addition all of the copyright is donated to the Orphéopolis association, which supports police orphans and bereaved families…

• In the bear’s skin (Frédéric Bourgade, Un Autre Reg’art Éditions, 213 pages, 18 euros)

Frédéric Bourgade, who was one of the Toulouse voices of France Info et France Interpublishes here his first novel which features Man and Animal. Everyone talks about the bear but no one has seen it, except Pierre. Exiled to Paristhis Ardéchois who suffers from agoraphobia becomes, thanks to Émile, a shepherd in Ariège. From the profession, he learns the gestures and the risks, the issues, the contradictions, discovers the summer pasture, the Pyrenean space.
A mythical figure, the bear is for him the absolute stranger, and for his employer, evil incarnate. But Marc, the eco-friendly guy, shakes up his fears. Pierre, although physically attacked by the plantigrade, realizes during the lawsuit brought against the animal that the bear is another ourselves. A double, a twin, a next-door neighbor back home, in the Pyrenees. With this first novel, Frédéric Bourgade takes us to the heart of Couseransdiscovering an authentic rural world.

• Analysis of a masterpiece (Dominique Auzel, editions Le Roman d’un masterpiece, 109 pages. Price: €13.90)
  

Between fiction and reality, Dominique Auzel (who is none other than the director of Editions Privat) tells us the story of Gustave Caillebotte’s masterpiece. Parquet planers. Chapter after chapter, according to the different narrators, we are literally immersed in the time of its creation. The author allows us to perfectly understand the genius of a realistic painter breaking with the academicism of his time, also a patron and close defender of the Impressionists.

“Workers, artisans of beauty according to Caillebotte”, by Dominique Auzel, published by Le Roman d’un masterpiece, 109 pages. Price: €13.90

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