Give a book as a Christmas or New Year gift

We present 3 books by friends of Défis Humanitaires that you will find in bookshops or on online sales platforms.

Lettres à la petite fille qui vient de naître. Patrice Franceschi. Editions Grasset.

“My dear child, you are barely a few months old, the future is all before you, but ever since the day you were born I’ve been wondering about the fate that will be in store for you in the world in which you have just taken your place, and about the way in which I could act to make that fate as good as possible…”
These are the words of Patrice Franceschi to his very young goddaughter, the first letter of a series of twenty-four addressed to the ‘little girl who has just been born’, to help her face the world that awaits her, riddled with violence and cowardice, plagued by doubt and anger. These letters are full of hope and solutions for a child in search of laughter, peace and exchange. To the little girl who will read these pages, much later, as an initiatory journey towards happiness, Franceschi hides nothing. And she proposes a way of being: profoundly free, morally committed, never indifferent; with truth, beauty, the call of risk and wisdom at her heart.
The most universal of gifts: one hundred pages to love life intensely.

Patrice Franceschi is a writer, aviator and sailor. His books include Ethique du samouraï moderne and Première personne du singulier (winner of the Prix Goncourt for short stories). His latest book is Le goût du risque, with Andrea Marcolongo and Loïc Finaz.

Opération Moonwalk. Jean-Félix de la Ville Baugé et Arash Rafii. Editions Télémaque.

In June 2009, Iranian power is wavering. Under the watchful eye of nascent social networks, the ‘Twitter revolution’ is in full swing, sparked by the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Suddenly, a brutal event was to divert the world’s attention and save the regime: Michael Jackson had died.

But what if the mullahs had hatched an unprecedented plot?

A subtle and hilarious plunge into the heart of power and the Iranian soul. A disturbing piece of political fiction to mark the 15th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death and Iran’s first green revolution.

Jean-Félix de La Ville Baugé has just been awarded the Prix de littérature générale Louis Barthou by the Académie française for his novel Magnifique.
Arash Rafii is Franco-Iranian. A surgeon, he arrived in France with his family at the age of 10.

Récits d’aventuriers. Jean-Christian Kipp et Olivier Weber. Editions de l’Aube.

– The North Pole alone
– When nothing goes according to plan in war-torn Brazzaville
– In the footsteps of the last Alakalufs
– At the gates of Everest
– The dinosaur graveyard
– Sarajevo? Straight to the end of Sniper Alley
– Sarawak 93
– Nagalaqa, the splendour of the useless
– Rendezvous on the steppe
– Murder in the Celestial Mountains

Olivier Archambeau, Marine Bayer, Régis Belleville , Stéphanie Bodet, Alain Boinet, Linda Bortoletto , Gérard Chaliand, Jean-Michel Corillion , Isabelle Coulon, Jean-Louis Étienne , Luc-Henri Fage, Éric Gilli, Christophe Grangeon, Cédric Gras, Jean-Christian Kipp, Arnaud de La Grange, Laurent Maréchaux, Pierre Muller, Guillaume Néry, Sébastien Roubinet, Lionel Suchet , Alain Tixier, Matthieu Tordeur, Olivier Weber