Books by Cécile David-Weill
Parents Under the Influence: Words of Wisdom from a Former Bad Mother
Part American and part French, part memoir and part guide, this book offers a fresh, unique, and powerful perspective on the challenges of parenting and how to find a rewarding path forward for parents and children alike.
How should we raise our children? It should be a simple enough question to answer but in fact it is an intimidating and complex one. We often address it by deciding to do either exactly what our parents did or just the opposite. After that we rely on a cocktail of love and instinct, hoping it will be enough to overcome the difficulties ahead.
Far from having perfect free will, however, we are all under the influence. The child still within us confuses, influences, or undermines all our aspirations as parents and prevents us from sticking to the philosophy we initially hoped to follow. These unresolved emotions drive us to reproduce the upbringing we received, including the behaviors that have hurt us the most.
In Parents Under the Influence, Cécile David-Weill draws on her own parenting blunders and successes as well as concrete examples, case studies, and works of fiction to guide readers, helping them heal from the past and become effective, nurturing parents.
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The Suitors: A Novel
by Ben Ehrenreich, Cécile David-Weill
Very loosely based on The Odyssey, this wildly inventive, skillfully crafted novel follows the eyebrow-raising exploits of one woman's much-maligned, ill-fated suitors.
While the Odysseus character (herein named Payne) gallivants around, waging war and otherwise taking his time on the voyage home, the Penelope character (now Penny) finds herself surrounded by a motley crew of ne'er-dowells eager for nothing but her attention. She, however, cannot be bothered with anything but her memories of Payne. That is, until the mysterious arrival of a man whose origins no one on the scene can quite divine. When Penny starts taking a shine to him, the tenuous calm on the home front quickly starts to unravel. Full of ideas but with never a dull moment, The Suitors heralds the debut of an exciting new literary voice.
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The Suitors: A Novel
by Ben Ehrenreich, Cécile David-Weill
A comedy of manners that serves as an insightful look at the lives of those in the upper classes.
After two sisters, Laure and Marie, learn of their parents’ plan to sell the family’s summer retreat, L’Agapanthe, they devise a scheme for attracting a wealthy suitor who can afford to purchase the estate. Selling it would mean more than just losing a place to go during the summer—for the sisters, it’s become a necessary part of their character, their lifestyle, and their past.
L’Agapanthe, a place of charm and nostalgia, is the perfect venue to exercise proper etiquette and intellect, though not all its visitors are socially savvy, especially when it’s a matter of understanding the relationships between old money and the nouveau riche. The comedy of manners begins: with stock traders, yogis, fashion designers, models, swindlers, the Mafia, and a number of celebrity guests.
Laure—the witty, disarming, and poignant narrator—guides the reader through elegant dinners, midnight swims in the bay, and conversations about current events, literature, art, and cinema. The Suitors is an amusing insider’s look at the codes, manners, and morals of French high society.
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$19.95