From the author of Pardon My French and A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi, this is the charming and hilariously funny story of one man's attempt to travel the entire length of the Seine by boat

When Charles shows his friends the rowing boat he has spent the last six months building, he little realises the adventures that lie ahead. Several glasses of champagne later (it is New Year's Eve), he finds himself betting he will travel the entire length of the Seine from source to the sea in the next year and discover the true France.

But the reality proves somewhat more difficult than he had expected. As Charles sets sail into an unvarnished France on a variety of craft from steamers to police patrol boats to inflatables, he encounters truffle-thieving terriers and obsessive fishermen, grapples with strong rapids and stubborn cattle, and is nearly destroyed by a cheese so smelly it comes with its own health warning.

This is the charming and often hilarious story of Charles's Quixotic quest - and the most unique guide to the true France that you will find.

Reviews of Pardon My French:

'So good ... the book describes the French real French people speak, as opposed to the French you're taught in school. It also, delicately and amusingly, looks at the pscychology of the French' Guardian

'The hilarious survival guide to French: from ordering a steak without getting sneered at to how exactly to say oh la la, this is not just the most entertaining, but also the most useful book on France and the French you'll ever read' Living France

About the author:

When Charles Timoney and his French wife were both made redundant in the same week, they decided to try living in France for a year or so. It proved much harder than expected. Charles's O level in French was little help when everyone around him consistently used a wide variety of impenetrable slang and persisted in the annoying habit of talking about things he had never heard of. But they stayed. Two decades and two thoroughly French children later, An Englishman Aboard is Charles's third book on his experience of France, the French people and the French language: Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul, A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi: The Ideal Guide to Sounding, Acting and Shrugging Like the French and now An Englishman Aboard.