Loo Libraries, Robert Escarpit, Lists and Movies.
Hello and welcome to my loo, my little downstairs loo, which has a small library on the lower left, which you can't see in this image, and into which we put odd, unclassifiable books - ancient paperbacks with yellowing pages which really should go to a charity shop, but not yet, odd self-help books to dip into and promptly forget, and then the odd treasure like this French story book (I can't describe these stories as fairy stories because they don't contain any fairies) which I haven't looked at for decades, and which I recently began reading. I love its surreal cover illustration, reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, and the inside line drawings are similar in feel. The illustrator is Sylvie Francois, the writer Robert Escarpit, and the book was first published in 1975! What has most struck me about these fantasy stories is how very French they are. Here we have a country afflicted with sadness - absolutely nobody is happy. The king tried to organise a ball to cheer...