If you know me at all, you know that books are my life, and loom large in retirement. So you won’t be surprised to learn that one factor in my choice of retirement locations is the weekly marché des livres in Place de la Comédie near the tourist information office. Nor that said marché would be my destination for Saturday afternoon.

Since my French reading vocabulary is not huge at this point, I opt for the less challenging volumes. Today’s acquisitions are Jacques Tardi’s Le Savant  Fou, one of Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec, and a 52-week Calendrier Les Shadocks, Shadocks being French cartoon characters satirizing contemporary politics (try YouTube; see, Maryon, I did watch them !).

Bonus: The bookseller with whom I chatted last year — who told me he was happy to have moved from Lyon where it’s always overcast and gloomy to Montpellier where there’s more sun — remembered me when I walked up and said “Bonjour.”

Final stop for today: The tourist office, where I collected a few brochures and a couple of postcards to mail home.

P.S. (Sunday) A pic of the books that I shipped over to keep me occupied until the larger shipment arrives, and I have a place to put those.