Read a book from each country discussion

nice kitty pix for our group. :)

The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas

I know everyone's heard of it, but I only read it recently. It's fantastic!

Three Musketeers

The Stranger by Albert Camus

One of my favorite books, it's really great.

The Plague - it's a good book when you don't have to read it for your classes. Read it without reading essays on it earlier.

The Misanthrope, Moliere. Candide, Voltaire. Both still clever and funny commentaries on society.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, which despite the title is actually quite uplifting, about the potential in people.

The Hunchback of the Notre-Dame

Le Libraire ( The Bookseller(?) ) by Régis de Sá Moreira

It is a lovely story about an oldfashioned bookseller and his love for books.

I am not sure about the title. I just translated the french one into english...

In a search of lost time Marcel Proust

A la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust (translated as In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past)

I stuck in second volume, but it's the last to read from the series.

You didn't read them in order? Why did you choose to do it that way?

Cause it wasn't in the in library and someone was keeping two volumes for very long time.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

fun juvenalia: Le Petit Prince, Zazie dans le Metro

Currently reading the entire D'Artagnan cycle by Alexandre Dumas. Be wary of the Oxford translations though...unfortunately some of the books are only available from them and they could be done better.

The Phantom of the Opera The Original Novel by Gaston Leroux. Although it is his best known work some people say his earlier work The Mystery of the Yellow Room is even better

excellent contemporary novella - Emmanuelle Bernheim's Sa femme: it involves the idea of infidelity in a not-often suggested, psychological way.

I just finnished Twenty Years After by Dumas, the next book in the Three Musketeers seris, and it was quite good.

anybody has read anything of balzac or zola? or the famous "Madame Bovary" by flaubert? these would be the first authors to come into my mind when thinking of france, but i haven't read any of them as i'm always hoping to improve my french to a degree to be able to read them in the original....an easy - and interesting read - would be "Le rhinocéros" by eugene ionesco - really liked that play....and you can read it in an hour or so without much use of a dictionary...."Pantagruel" is stuck in my bookshelf, but i haven't reopened it after a first try...

I read Madame Bovary by Flaubert and Old Goriot by Balzac.

A majority of the books listed above are classics. For those who want to read some more modern books, here are four that are really good. For three of them, I have given their french titles but all four are also available in English. They are the following:

1. L'élégance du hérisson by Barbery, Muriel
2. La Bicyclette Bleue by Deforges, Régine
3. Ensemble c'est tout by Gavalda, Anna
4. The Horseman on the Roof by Giono, Jean

They are simply in alphabetical order. All are really good!

Merci beaucoup for some newer books, always a good idea.....i've read "Ensemble c'est tout", but in German, and i really liked it. a beautiful story for everyone who liked amélie - sad and bittersweet....

Julia, since you are interested in modern writers well here is another that I forgot to mention: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. He has written many and I do not like all of them but I REALLY liked two. They are Oscar et la Dame Rose and Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Qu'ran. I read them in French but they are also translated to English. The latter is my favorite. Jean Giono , mentioned above, also wrote many. I have not read them all. There is a very good one that is sort of a biography, but I cannot remember the title! I have the funny feeling it had blue in the title.... What a memory!

Thanks, Chrissie, i wanted to read "Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Qu'ran" for a long time, the movie (which i didn't see in the end...) drew my attention to it....great to get some recommendations from a french speaker!!!

Julia, I manage in French - I am not fluent. I was born in the US. I know Swedish very well b/c I have spent most of my life there. My husband is Swedish. Currently we live in Belgium so of course I have tackled French. Dutch is also spoken here but to learn two new languages was beyond my capabilities. I love visiting France where I use my French too. You cannot learn about a country if you do not try at least to communicate in the country's language. I think. Sure I like classics but not JUST classics.... Check out Giono - he is really, really good. He also has a short good one about trees...... Actually I don't think he is alive anymore. Don't you adore GR?! Julia maybe we could be friends, but I see that you are private so I cannot check out if your book tastes are similar to mine.

ah, so du kan talar svenska......det är bra - jag har läsat svenska, men jag har förgätat allt.....
what you say about languages is defintely true, i'm a language geek and i always try to learn at least some basic vocabulary and grammar before travelling anywhere and it's also so much more enjoyable to be able to read books in the language they were written in...just too much to learn and too little time....I've researched Giono and he died in 1970, but seems like quite a prolific writer, i'll definitely check him out...maybe the book you've read was "Jean le Bleu"?

Julia I have bought but I haven't read yet The Joy of Man's Desiring by Giono. I read The Man Who Planted Trees and Blue Boy years ago before I knew any French. His writing changed over the
years and there was something about that the style was a little different in TJOMD. That I have read several by this author shows that I really like him b/c usually I prefer trying different authors, there are just so many books and different authors to read. Perhaps for me BB was the best b/c I also like memoirs. Fun that you know Swedish too. How long were you there and where were you in the country? On my Sweden shelf I have listed several that are good, but I tend to like books taking place in locations where I do not live..... Silly huh! One kind of takes for granted that which surrounds you. I shelf a book in the country where it takes place, not by the nationality of the author. I read lots of Swedish literature when I first moved there. Now I have had my fill. I have not registered most of the books I read a long time ago. I never know how many stars to give them.

I would recommand Romain Gary's novels, especially La Vie devant soi and La promesse de l'aube.
Sorry, I don't know the titles in English, as I read them in French. I don't even know if they have actually been translated into English, but I think so.
They're really good, and I reckon not too difficult to read (compared to Zola, Flaubert, Proust, and other classics that may be quite discouraging when trying to discover French literature) even in French.

Simone de Beauvoir Le Deuxième sexe

Just finnished The Fall by Camus, though the narrative style is a bit tedius to read at times, the story is not as interesting or engaging as The Stranger, I loved the book becasue Camus mirrors so much of my own thoughts.

The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Great book

Il faut lire tous les livres de Marguerite Yourcenar !

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Sinqollo7 wrote: "Les Misérables by Victor Hugo"

Great book

I've been enjoying Colette lately.

Also, Breton's Nadja.

Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly ; Les Diaboliques

Une Vie by Guy de Maupassant a beautifully told story of a woman's heartbreak, Maupassant does a remarkable job of capturing the raw emotions of a woman struggling through her idelistic love, and being confronted with the stark reality.

The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras

I never heard of this book or author before, and it was quite the haunting, captivating and beautifully written story.

Do the authors need to be French or are the books just books that are set in France?

If you want books set in France, a couple I've read recently are:
Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran
The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust