"A Year in the Merde" by Stephen Clarke

I love love looooooooooove this book! I am reading it right now and don't want to finish it because all the fun of reading it will be over, but I still want to know how it ends, you know what I mean?

Has anyone read this or is currently reading it? Once I finish this, I'm going to read the sequel "Merde Actually" and then see if I can get my hands on the second sequel "Merde Happens" which is supposed to be out soon. Stephen Clarke is a comical genius!

I finished reading "A Year in the Merde" and was sad to finish it but like all good things, it must come to an end. I wish it could go on forever and ever!

It's really rare that I ever like a book so much, or have a really strong connection to it. If you're looking for a fun, humorous read, I highly recommend this.

Take a self-assured Brit with an eye for the ladies, drop him in the middle of Paris with a tenuous grasp of the language and you have Clarke's alter ego, Paul West, who combines the gaffes of Bridget Jones with the boldness of James Bond. Hired to oversee the creation of a French chain of British tearooms, Clarke, aka West, spends nine months—the equivalent of a French business year—stumbling his way through office politics à la française. Clarke's sharp eye for detail and relentless wit make even the most quotidian task seem surreal, from ordering a cup of coffee to picking up a loaf of bread at the boulangerie. Luck is by West's side as he moves into a stunning apartment (with his boss's attractive daughter), but he has to be careful where he steps, as he finds he "began to branch out from literal to metaphorical encounters of the turd kind." Between conspiring colleagues, numerous sexual escapades (he deems French porn "unsexy" since "Being French, they had to talk endlessly before they got down to action") and simply trying to order a normal-sized glass of beer, West quickly learns essential tricks to help him keep his head above the Seine. Originally self-published in Paris, Clarke's first book in a soon-to-be-series is funny and well-written enough to appeal to an audience beyond just Francophiles.