Hello forum!
I'm just wondering if you could tell me which books you would recommend to our readers?
Do you like Joanne Harris? Or Maybe Stephen Clarke is more your cup of tea?
Let us know...
Thanks!
Carolyn
I enjoyed C'est la folie by Micheal Wright
It was a light and easy suitable for a fun read while on holiday, he was very witty and I enjoyed his discriptions of his surroundings.
Also:
Kate Mosses two books, a bit more heavey in all ways , not suitable for popping into your suitcase but a great way to dive into the atmosphere of the areas she wrote about, with a glass of wine in front of the fire this winter !! I was entranced by both of her books
The Michael Wright book is, I believe, based on his column in the Telegraph on Saturdays. I personally prefer Helena Frith-Wood's books - she writes in the Sunday Times among others. She manages to provide a rather more balanced view than most of the other France writers, who tend to be a bit 'fluffy' (but that's probably exactly what a rose-tinted glossy magazine wants). Though she still manages to present the French experience in a positive light and isn't at all off-putting.
George East does much the same, but his stories, although all loosely based on truth, are a bit too embellished and a bit too earthy for some.
My favourite France book is Signs of the Heart (subtitled Love and Death in the Languedoc) by Christopher Hope. This too is based on various press articles, and also shows the dark side of the immigrant life in France, but does it with wit and good humour.
I am with Dick Smith, in that I try and find and re-read Maigret novels. They provide vivid pictures into France in the decades either side of WW2. It was interesting that they used Prague to recreate Maigret's Paris in the Michael Gambon TV series. I am a lot less keen on Simenon's other books - they too show interesting facets of France but are more one dimensional.
Last summer, whilst waiting to pick-up a daughter at La Rochelle airport, I got to chatting to a charming gentleman who had set up a tressle table and was selling a couple of self-published books. I bought one, a police procedual (sp?) about a homicide policeman in La Rochelle starting to deal with a child murder. Unfortunately the book fell victim to my absent mindedness and I am unlikely to ever know what happened next. Surprisingly there was not much sense of place which I would have thought to been a strong element of what I assume to have been a locally written book.
I too enjoyed C'est La Folie (I read the column every Saturday) and I am greatful to Catalpa for a new author to read.
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