French Literature

[close] Hello and welcome to The Count of Monte Cristo Read-a-Long Goodreads Group! Throughout November this year I'm going to be dragging unsuspecting victims into reading this beast of a classic with me, because frankly it's been sitting unread on my shelves for far too long. This group is here for us to discuss anything we might discover during our reading, whether it's the representation of early 19th century France or how good looking we imagine the Count to be. There's no judgment here. This is also the place where you can ask any questions about the read-a-long itself, but I assure you it's not designed to be difficult. All you have to do is find yourself a copy, in any format or any language, and start reading come November! My hope is that we'll all have a lot of fun reading a classic which, in my experience, looks pretty intimidating! Those of you on Twitter are also encouraged to update your weekly progress on the Twittosphere with #MonteCristoMonday There's also a Facebook group here!

[close] First of all, why such a group name? It's all about personal preference and literary taste. Literature lovers living in Toronto may meet and form friendships through this group. This group, like everything else, will change form after a while, it would be deleted or perhaps destroyed.

[close] I started this group on idea that I had as a reader. I was constantly finding books in foreign languages that I am/was unable to read. I thought wouldn't it be great if I could ban together translators, authors and publishers together to possibly make English versions available to non-multilingual people? and also, books from other countries like the UK and Australia not available to those in the USA? I'm looking for translators who are dual-lingual, in their native tongue and in English. French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, all apply here. My idea is to take the original book, translate it, publish it to Smashwords or somewhere similar, see how it gains an audience to an American publisher may pick it up and publish it, possibly give it a better translation. I'm not sure how all this work, legally, but it's worth taking a shot at! If this takes off, I'd like to start a website, to collaborate with reviewers, other bloggers, authors, publishers and freelance translators. We would work on translations, take requests, communicate with authors and publishers and review said books. if we cannot translate, I'd like to at least spread the knowledge of the books in hopes that they'd picked up by a USA publisher.

[close] Vendôme Circle's mission is to celebrate France's unique contribution to literary and artistic creation. This book club is a place where members can explore and (re)discover classic French literature ranging from Rabelais and Madame de Lafayette to Françoise Sagan and Patrick Modiano, not to mention such authors as Hugo, Dumas, Zola or Colette. We may also indulge in an occasional book by a non-French author who lived and wrote in France. Tender is the Night anyone?