Candide Ou L'optitsme
- What a marvelous book about a fellow who is taught the lessons of the world in a more or less rude fashion and how he rationalizes and handles it all. Very French. When I first read Voltaire and struggled through this marvelous story I was enthralled by the variety and warmth of the language. I only wish I could relate these thoughts in French. I'm working on it. A votre sante.
- —Guest Buck Entriken
Pas si fous , ces Français!
- The title is "Sixty Million Frenchmen can't be wrong" by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, two journalists from Canada . France and its numerous cultural paradoxes . "La France ressemble parfois à une démocratie d'aristocrates ." I enjoyed that book ,which enabled me to rediscover my country with new eyes .
- —Guest jacqueline
favorite book about France
- Besides My Life In France I enjoyed David Lebovitz's book The Sweet Life In Paris about his decision to leave the States to move to Paris. It is often funny and offers recipes, restaurant tips and sources for finding foods and equipment both in the US and in France.
- —bluzmama
Paris: The Biography of a City
- author: Colin Jones clearly described history with vignettes of each era/stage inserted along the way. Possible to read areas of special interest or read straight through.Clear language with enough detail to promote more research if required. Spans Paris -Lutetia to c. 1000 to c. 1995
- —Guest Frances Elliott
Almost French
- Australian journalist who marries Frenchman writes about adapting to French customs, culture and everyday life
- —Guest elsabe Ketteringham
Evidences invisibles
- Written by Raymonde Carroll, available in both French and English. Looks at how the two cultures approach the same situation.
- —YANSHAK
La Rose de Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda
- This is one of the best Manga I have read and I love this story and love the graphics!! I am sure nearly everyone of the Japanese girls in my age knows about this and lots of them fell in love with this story....
- —Guest Yumi
A Year in Provence
- Peter Mayle's books about living in Provence and working with the locals were so popular he had to move away from Provence. These were the books that I loved so much that they kept me going when learning French by myself got too difficult. Now that I've managed that task it's French fiction that keeps me going. I've got a rule that if a book was written in French, it has to be read in French!
- —Guest Alison
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel B
- The story of a concierge in Paris, a mixed-up 12 year-old and a Japanese gentleman. Philosophy, music, literature and fine art bring these seemingly disparate characters together in true friendship. A lovely story.
- —Guest Guest Lee
Handful of books about living in France
- Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. Gopnik writes of his five years in Paris with his wife and young son while on assignment for the New Yorker. He writes with love about everyday life in Paris. The Lost Upland by W. S. Merwin. Poet Merwin lived in southwestern France and writes with poetic and literary style of the lives and ways of the country people he lived alongside. Lovely and evocative. Shakespeare & Company by Sylvia Beach. Beach's memoir of her 20 years as the proprietor of a bookstore and intimate friend of the famous writers who gathered there in the 1920's and 30's. Classic work of literary lives and Paris. A Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France by Draine and Hindon. A couple buy a small stone summer house in a small town in the Perigord region. Perfume From Provence by Lady Fortescue. Older memoir. Lady Fortescue and her husband move from Britain to Provence in 1920/30's and renovate a house. (Used copies on Amazon)
- —Guest Robin
Eliot Paul: The Last Time I Saw Paris
- A great look at the old 6eme during WW2. And I should mention also Bonnie Smith's Confessions of a Concierge from Yale University Press. Marvelous insights.
- —rpmcestmoi
Bohemian France
- "The Banquet Years" by Richard Shattuck. Describes the origins of the Avant-Garde, 1885 to World War 1. It covers the lives and works of Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, and Guillaume Apollinaire. A very fascinating read. I wished to have been a part of that era in Paris. "Tropic Of Cancer" by Henry Miller. He writes about his experiences in Paris during the 1930s. "Bohemian Paris" by Dan Franck (translated into English by Cynthia Liebow). Another book about the artists and poets living in Paris. People such as Modigliani, Matisse, Picasso, Max Jacob and others. Some parts were a bit hard to believe, but I enjoyed reading it.
- —Guest wally
The piano shop on the west bank
- A wonderful exploration of the hisory of pianos, Parisians and Paris.
- —Guest Mary
Celestine: Voices from a French Village
- The author, Gillian Tindall, owned a house in a village in the Indre region. One day in an empty house she finds a collection of love letters written to Celestine. This prompts her to research the life and times of the village and its emergence into modern France.
- —Tedred
Suite Francaise
- "Suite Francaise" is one of my favorite books about the French during WWII because it humanized the war and what the French people, including the soldiers were going through. It was an eye opener for me.
- —Guest Alma Walshak
