Buy some English speaking movies on DVD. Just make sure that you can play them in your DVD as well (there are different regions but some DVD players can play them all). In Europe you should be able to find none-dubbed movies in apart from the UK and Ireland - The Netherlands and the Nordic countries. On most none-dubbed DVD's you can choose English sublines as well.
I don't know if I would have bought those books in advance. If you do, try to find them second hand and it shouldn't cost you more than something in the region of €300. What I do recommend is to buy the Oxford Meteorology cd-rom. That CD will give you good practice in understanding spoken English as well as learning meteorology. If you know that CD well you should be able to pass the corresponding JAR ATPL subject.
I'm from Sweden where the movies aren't dubbed (thankfully!). I hardly know French so any exercises would probably not help much. Thanks anyway.