Favorite French books/authors

[Anonymous]

I'm taking a trip to France next year, mainly in Paris, and like to match my reading to my travel. What French books or authors would you recommend? I have read most of the well-known French classics. Interested in lesser-known classics, nonfiction, or books translated from French that really invoke a French setting. Kind of over WWII lit, FYI.

[Anonymous]

Sentimental Education & Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

L'Etranger by Albert Camus (The Outsider trans).

These are some of my favorites.

[Anonymous]

Jean Genet “Our Lady of the Flowers”

[Anonymous]

Patrick Modiano, Missing Person

Louis Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night (a controversial author but a fantastic novel, in the French language version - not sur how well it translates).

[Anonymous]

^ and I should have added: All The Light we Cannot See (English novel, French setting).

[Anonymous]

Nicolas Le Floch books by Jean-Francois Parot. They are historical crime novels set in the 1700s.

[Anonymous]

I'm French, and much prefer English novels to French one. But when it comes to poetry, I prefer French poets. Have you read Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, that long-banned collection?

If you want a general overview, I strongly recommend Pompidou's Anthologie de la Poesie Francaise (yes, he was a President, and a poetry lover). You'll get an exquisite collection of poems from Medieval times to the 19th century.

If you haven't read Marcel Pagnol and his stories steeped in his beloved Provence, I also recommend his novels, particularly the two made famous by their subsequent movies, which you can watch as well: Jean de Florette et the sequel (my favorite one) Manon des Sources.

[Anonymous]

It's nonfiction but this is a really beautiful book: From Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik.

[Anonymous]

Elegance of the Hedgehog

[Anonymous]

I love the 70s crime novels of Jean-Patrick Manchette.

3 to Kill and the Prone Gunman are my favorites but they are all readable

[Anonymous]

Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm French, and much prefer English novels to French one. But when it comes to poetry, I prefer French poets. Have you read Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, that long-banned collection?

If you want a general overview, I strongly recommend Pompidou's Anthologie de la Poesie Francaise (yes, he was a President, and a poetry lover). You'll get an exquisite collection of poems from Medieval times to the 19th century.

If you haven't read Marcel Pagnol and his stories steeped in his beloved Provence, I also recommend his novels, particularly the two made famous by their subsequent movies, which you can watch as well: Jean de Florette et the sequel (my favorite one) Manon des Sources.

Merci