FRENCH WOMEN DON'T SLEEP ALONE: PLEASURABLE SECRETS TO FINDING LOVE

By Jamie Cat Callan (Citadel, 224 pages, paperback, $12.95)

Jamie Cat Callan is clearly trying to cash in on the success of "French Women Don't Get Fat," but the title of her book is a bit of a misnomer. She's actually advocating selectiveness. She offers some good tips on living a balanced life -- and even some recipes. It's all a little disjointed, but her main point is that French women don't date. They have a "coterie" of male and female friends and meet suitors in the context of this group over a period of time for dinner parties, movies, gallery excursions, etc. They go for walks with men in whom they're interested, instead of on "interview-style" dates. They live their own lives to the fullest by being well-educated, well-groomed and well-informed. Freely admitting her girl crush on French women, Callan says the secret of their allure is that their men know they can lose them at any moment. If that sounds a little harsh to American ears, well, vive la différence.

MARCI SCHMITT, FEATURES LAYOUT EDITOR

THE MOON OPERA

By Bi Feiyu (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 117 pages, $18)

This petite, pretty novel by a young writer popular in his native China chronicles the comeback of Xiao Yanqiu, a middle-aged Beijing Opera star who has lived in disgrace since 1979, when she threw scalding water in her understudy's face. When, 20 years later, she gets a chance to star again in the challenging "Moon Opera," she sets out to revive her image and her happiness. But will hubris and jealousy doom her again? Her drama plays out within the rule-bound world of traditional Chinese opera and the restrictions that govern the life of a Chinese woman. Yet even in a cage, human emotions cannot be ordered. This exotic novella is much more than the morality tale it first appears to be.

PAMELA MILLER, NIGHT METRO EDITOR