The Book Clubs of the Alliance Francaise Silicon Valley

Stanford-educated with a PhD in French and humanities, Anaïs Saint-Jude has been a senior relationship manager with LinkedIn Learning Solutions since 2017. Anaïs Saint-Jude was previously a Program Manager at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University and sat on the board of directors of the Alliance Française of Silicon Valley.

The Alliance Française of Silicon Valley (AFSV) is dedicated to serving as a hub of French language and culture in San Jose and San Francisco Bay Area. Among its other programs and initiatives, AFSV hosts two book clubs, the Club de Lecture in Menlo Park and the Cercle de Lecture in Los Gatos.

Both of these clubs are open to the public free of charge and meet each month to discuss a different French-language book. Recent books under discussion include Une Forme de Vie by Amelie Nothomb, La rivière Espérance by Christian Signol, and Le Ventre de l'Atlantique by Fatou Diome.

A Brief Look at Roman Catholicism's St. Augustine of Hippo

A senior relationship manager at LinkedIn in San Francisco, Anaïs Saint-Jude plays a key role in helping companys develop cultures of learning to drive innovation and growth. Holder of a doctorate from Stanford University, Anaïs Saint-Jude is a prolific reader, counting St. Augustine’s autobiography, The Confessions, as a favorite. 

St. Augustine is one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most influential thinkers. Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine was born in the year 354 A.D. in Thagaste in North Africa. His father was pagan and his mother was Christian, and St. Augustine was raised Christian. 

During his law studies in Carthage, St. Augustine became deeply interested in philosophy, adhered to the Manichean religion, and lived a life of pleasure and worldly desires. One of the most intelligent men who has ever lived, he founded his own school of rhetoric in Rome in 383 A.D. and then became a professor in Milan, where he met St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, whose friendship and teachings led St. Augustine back to Christianity. 

St. Augustine was baptised in 387 A.D. and became a priest, a bishop, a prolific author, a founder of a religious order of priests, and one of the greatest saints who has ever lived. St. Augustine's surviving writings include 113 books and treatises, over 200 letters, and more than 500 homilies. Two of his longest works, The Confessions and City of God, are canonical texts in Christian theology and have made an enduring impact on the psychology and political philosophy of the West. 

St. Augustine died on August 28 in 430 A.D. when the Vandals invaded Hippo. St. Augustine is the patron saint of brewers because of his conversion from a former life of worldly pleasures and distractions.