All Hail the Europeans

I've always loved the Europeans. Oh, honestly, I have. I've sought them out throughout my life ever since third grade when my father went off to the Sloan School at MIT and we acquired a new best-friend family, all ten of whom hailed from this place called France.

Pierre was the boy's name, a messy-haired blond the right amount of older than me. And so much more interesting than any other guy whom I'd yet met.


Oh, Pierre.


In any case, my European clients are the ones I'm often talking with at five or six or seven a.m., and not much minding; I do adore a good accent, thank you Jessica, Angus, Sonia, Faye, Helena, and Souheil. And my European vacations are the ones I most miss; it's been too long now since I've crossed the wide salty blue.

And look today what we find in the venerable New York Times. Repeat after me, will you?, this headline: "Book Sales in Europe are Gaining in Tough Times." "People have been reading and they will keep reading, no matter what happens," one Andre Breedt of Nielsen BookScan is quoted as saying.

Something to raise a bit of bubbly to, no? Okay. All right. Perhaps not bubbly. It's St. Patrick's Day, after all, as a friend just reminded me. People are out on the streets of New York City, he says, awash on too-much green beer. So raise your beer to the news, then. Or your sparkling apple cider. Or your Malbec. Or your ginger ale.

Just give a moment to the Europeans, who are leading the charge for the rest of us who still believe in books.