Violet, lest you're unaware, you need to know that a weekly Book Report of each of the above-mentioned is a requirement of this Board.

Travelers' Tales France, True Stories by Travelers' Tales Guides. A collection of mini-essays by a variety of well-known writers. Insightful bits about large and small places in France, culture, interactions between people, history, you name it. Some of these stories are extremely funny.

This is a great book to read because you can just fit the stories into the free minutes you have each day.

Hi, violet2! Thanks for starting a great thread!

With all the reading recommendations - when did you say you were going to France - 2010? Lo!

Reading French authors themselves is a great start, although I found Guy de Maupassant easier to read than Stendhal.

On the lighter side are the Peter Mayle and Polly Platt books.

The book, Perfume, is - ah - interesting but a bit different. A bit Gothic, wouldn't you say?

Another "mystery" type of book is the "Da Vinci Code" which has a lot of Paris in it. Good read.

There is just so much and all the recommendations here have been excellent.

I would include something on French architecture, especially Mansart, who gave us the great looking Mansart roofs you will see all over Paris.

Also something on the Beat and Lost Generation poets and writers. When you walk through the Luxembourg Gardens and see those fat pigeons, it adds something - je ne sais pas quoi - to know that when he was very poor, Hemingway used to catch those fat pigeons for dinner.

Happy reading and happy travels!

correction: While his name was Francois Mansart (with a "t") the roofline named after him is known as a "mansard" (with a "d") roof.

Just thought you needed to know...

I agree that Paris to the Moon is ok, but hardly an approach one would want to take to immerse oneself in a country of one's dreams--he seems to avoid as much as possible.

But has anyone read the Carol Drinkwater books--The Olive Farm and The Olive Season--just out. I loved them--the story of a British actress (All Creatures Great and Small) who falls in love with a Frenchman and their decision grown olives --I think it is more of a read for women, as Carol's point of view is tied into a lot of personal issues, but I loved the writing and the story.

my favorite is more realistic as far as interaction with family, in Bo Niles's
"Window on Provence"

Bree, thanks for naming the book that I extolled (a title always helps). And Jason888, on my last trip to Paris I saw an old woman employing the Hemingway method of procuring dinner.

If your travels are to be to Paris "Seven Ages of Paris" by Alistair Horne is a must.

I have just finished reading "The Occupation-1940-44" by a Professor Ousby from Cambridge. Very interesting.

DeGaulle's Memoirs of WW II is a well-written if somewhat immodest effort.

Madame Bovary gives the feel of Normandy. The late Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day" is a fine account of June 6 and thereafter.

Hi, Tuck!

Thanks for the correction from "mansart" roofs to "mansard" roofs.

However, I do believe that both forms are used. I just checked a review of a great book, The French Chateau - Life, Style, Tradition by Christine De Nicolay-Magery and the term used was "mansart" roofs.

"mansard" is probably a more generic term now used to describe a type of roofline, the way columns may be "gothic".

I, on the other hand, was trying - probably not very well - to describe the roofs in Paris which Mansart made popular.

Anyway, whether "mansart" or "mansard", I personally find the buildings very handsome. :)

Hi Violet,

First, I suggest that if this is your first trip, you spend the entire time in Paris.

Second, I suggest that you read the Paris section of "Innocents Abroad"/

Third, I suggest any book by MFK Fisher.

Thank you everyone, this will keep me busy. I had already read all three of Peter Mayle's books previously and enjoyed them.

I'm not a good history person so I'll probably stick to things that give more of an overview. For some reason lots of detailed history just won't stick in my brain.

Has anyone seen any English compilations of Moliere's work? I've looked off and on since High School and it seems he's under-represented in the current publishing world. I would really like to read his work and I don't think my rarely used French is up to reading it in his mother tongue.

Thanks

PS I'll be happy to do book reports once I get around to all the reading. I'm watching my budget right now-lay offs are pending. So it's the library or nothing.

A new book has been favorably reviewed in today's NYTimes, "MARIANNE IN CHAINS - Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation".

My interest in this topic was piqued earlier this summer when I learned at Chenonceau that the doorway at the far (south) end of the great hall that spans the River Cher led to Vichy France on the opposite shore. Thus some of those in the occupied zone could manage to escape to "Free France" through this portal.

Stendahl's The Red and the Black; anything by Colette; Nancy Mitford's biography of Louis XIV;
Simone De Beauvoir - any of her autobiographical books;
Barbara Tuchman's - A Distant Mirror is very good for medaeval history;

violet2, since you asked about the availability of Moliere's plays in English, I thought I'd mention that, while I was browsing on www.powells.com recently, I noticed that they have a paperback that contains Richard Wilbur's translations of both The Misanthrope and Tartuffe, and it's on sale for $5.98 (the list price is $13.00). Wilbur's translations are very highly thought of, so you might want to pick up a copy of that volume while it's available.

Here are more for anyone interested.
"Secrets of the Seine"Rosemblum",
Laurence Durrel's "Caesar's Vast Ghost",
"Le Flaneur"and "Our Paris" both by Edmund White,
Philip Meyer, "A Pariseans Paris"
"A place in the World Called Paris"by Barclay,
"Luminous Debris" and "The Fly Truffler
"both by Sobin,
"The Beat Hotel" by Miles,
"Paris Notebooks"by Mavis Gallant,
Ëxiles" by Michael Arlen
And some Basque country in "Postcards from the Basque Country" by Beth Nelson

While I must admit I enjoyed everyone of Mayle's books and I also enjoyed "From Paris to the Moon" by Gopnik, I understand they might not appeal to everyone. Fortunately there are a lot of books on this subject and we all have our favorites. One that hasn't been mentioned yet is "And God Created the French" by Louis-Bernard Robitaille. Another is "French Spirits" but I can't remember the author. It's another "buy an old house in Franch and fix it up" but I guess that appeals to the dreamers among us.

Good luck on your trip, the job, and the reading.

I'd just like to say that, based on recommendations in this thread, I bought the Ina Caro book, and so far I LOVE it! Thanks so much.

As I mentioned that book, 'from here you can almost see paris"that takes place in the lot, I read the book hot off the press and when I went there I didn't make reservations, the book has made it impossible for even the locals to dine. But I love the area anyway and found other great reataurants.
I am now reading Julian Moore's Pagnal's Provence.and rereading, Brassai's Henry Miller;The Paris Years.

Holy moly! The person who was afraid they might have to wait until 2010 for their trip was right! Thanks for the wonderful link. I discover I've read many of the recommendations. I didn't like "Paris to the Moon" either. My "Moveable Feast" is one of the few famous first editions I own. I can probably blame MFK Fisher for my need to spend a night in Aix. My library does not own "Gardens in Provence" by Louise Jones. I make take a flier and just buy one from Amazon. Anyone read? Lots of pictures?

First, some comments: the Mayle book about the thieves on bicycles, among other delights, is "Hotel Pastis." I'd characterize Patrick Susskind's Perfume" as bizarre rather than Gothic...but it's a book you won't forget. Part of it is set in Paris, part in the Midi, part in Grasse.

If you read "The Da Vinci Code," keep in mind that some of the material about Paris isn't entirely accurate, especially directions.

Some recommendations:

Jon Lanchester's "The Debt to Pleasure"
and Ian Pears'"The Dream of Scipio."

"Paris 1919," a fine book on the Paris Peace Conference following WWI.

For the feel of medieval France--and especially Paris--any of Sharon Newman's mysteries. Very well researched and fascinating.

The Maigret mysteries.

"Everybody Was So Young," a wonderful discussion of the major American expatriates in the south of France and Paris in the 1920's--Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, the Murphys, Hemingway, and others. Very readable.

"The Tides of Mont St.-Michel."
James Pope-Hennessy's "" Aspects of Provence. Ford Madox Ford's "Provence."

And finally, for use when you're stuck in a Loire château tour in a language you can't understand and the guide won't stop to open the door and let you leave early, Sartre's "Huis Clos (No Exit)."