France

Not One Day

One of Flavorwire’s “22 Essential Women Writers to Read in Translation”

Winner of the 2018 Albertine Prize

Finalist for the 2018 Lamba Literary Awards

Finalist for the 2018 French American Foundation Translation Prize

Not One Day won the Prix Médicis in 2002, recognizing Garréta as an author “whose fame does not yet match their talent.”

“Not One Day begins with a maxim: ‘Not one day without a woman.’ What follows is an intimate, erotic, and sometimes bitter recounting of loves and lovers past, breathtakingly written, exploring the interplay between memory, fantasy, and desire.

‘For life is too short to submit to reading poorly written books and sleeping with women one does not love.’”

“Although the book swerves briefly into the erotic, the majority of the text is a heady meditation. Where we expect to find a confession of the body, we are in fact met with a confession of the mind, as Garréta laments the imposition of hetero normative gender roles upon queer desire. This leaves the reader with another question: how can we invent alternate ways to express desire outside of hetero dichotomy?” —Lambda Literary

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A Winter’s Promise

Dubbed the “Harry Potter of France”

A National Indie Bestseller

“Dabos’s darkly enchanting debut, a French bestseller, employs vibrant characters, inventive worldbuilding, and a sophisticated plot that will dazzle readers.” - Publishers Weekly 

Lose yourself in the fantastic world of the arks and in the company of unforgettable characters in this French runaway hit.

Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. An unforgettable heroine in a rich and bountiful universe filled with intrigue and suspense, Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted. There, in the presence of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world.

Adult readers who gravitated toward the intricate world-building of Harry Potter or reveled in the dark trickeries of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass will find themselves ensnared by the enchantments of A Winter's Promise.

2018 Amazon Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book

One of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best YA Books of 2018

Publishers Weekly's Best YA Book of the Year

Longlisted for Irish prize Great Reads Award

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The End of Eddy

An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy.

“Every morning in the bathroom I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again . . . Today I’m really gonna be a tough guy.” Growing up in a poor village in northern France, all Eddy Bellegueule wanted was to be a man in the eyes of his family and neighbors. But from childhood, he was different—”girlish,” intellectually precocious, and attracted to other men.

Already translated into twenty languages, The End of Eddy captures the violence and desperation of life in a French factory town. It is also a sensitive, universal portrait of boyhood and sexual awakening. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard or Edmund White, Édouard Louis writes from his own undisguised experience, but he writes with an openness and a compassionate intelligence that are all his own. The result—a critical and popular triumph—has made him the most celebrated French writer of his generation.

“Haunting . . . devastating.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

“Èdouard Louis speaks of violence, both social and familiar, with tremendous force and feeling. Revelatory, queerly tough, as intellectual as it is impolite, The End of Eddy is a book to shake you up.” —Justin Torres, author of We the Animals

(Previous group read suggestion from Ivor Watkins, book club moderator.)

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The Ethics of Ambiguity

“From the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex comes a radical argument for ethical responsibility and freedom.

In this classic introduction to existentialist thought, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with her French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms in existentialism carry with them certain ethical responsibilities. De Beauvoir outlines a series of ‘ways of being’ (the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist, and the intellectual), each of which overcomes the former’s deficiencies, and therefore can live up to the responsibilities of freedom. Ultimately, de Beauvoir argues that in order to achieve true freedom, one must battle against the choices and activities of those who suppress it. 

The Ethics of Ambiguity is the book that launched Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist and existential philosophy. It remains a concise yet thorough examination of existence and what it means to be human.”

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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The Lost Domain (aka The Lost Estate & Le Grand Meaulnes)

“The arrival of Augustin Meaulnes at a small provincial secondary school sets in train a series of events that will have a profound effect on his life, and that of his new friend François Seurel. It is Seurel who recalls the impact of le grand Meaulnes, disruptive and charismatic, on his schoolmates, and the encounter that is to haunt them both.

Lost, and alone, Meaulnes stumbles upon an isolated house, mysterious revels, and a beautiful girl. When he returns to Seurel, it is with the fixed determination to find the house again, and the girl with whom he has fallen in love. But the dreamlike days in the lost domain are evanescent, and Meaulnes is torn between his love and competing claims of loyalty and friendship.

Alain-Fournier's lyrical novel captures the painful transition from adolescence to adulthood without sentimentality, and with heart-wrenching yearning. Romantic and fantastical, it is the story's ultimate truthfulness about human experience that has captivated readers for a hundred years. In her introduction to this centenary edition, Hermione Lee considers the qualities that have established its reputation.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Leslie Tchaikovsky for the group read suggestion.)

Note: This translation by Frank Davison is the one we recommend. Also, please be aware that the paperback version is available via a separate Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3bfngDs.

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Planet of the Apes

“If you've seen the cheesy Planet of the Apes movies, you may be shocked to learn the first movie was adapted from an intelligent, ironic, & literate novel. You'll be less surprised when you learn the original novel Planet of the Apes was written by Pierre Boulle, author of The Bridge over the River Kwai.

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutish Japanese guards. The subtext is strongly anti-slavery, anti-racist and anti-war.” - Observer

“In the not-too-distant future, three astronauts land on what appears to be a planet just like Earth, with lush forests, a temperate climate, and breathable air. But while it appears to be a paradise, nothing is what it seems.

They soon discover the terrifying truth: On this world, humans are savage beasts, and apes rule as their civilized masters. In a novel of nonstop action and breathless intrigue, one man struggles to unlock the secret of a terrifying civilization, all the while wondering: Will he become the savior of the human race, or the final witness to its damnation? In a shocking climax, Boulle delivers the answer in a masterpiece of adventure, satire, and suspense.”

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The President's Hat

“An enchanting, irresistible story which flows quickly and effortlessly from one vivid character to the next, capturing their essence in a minimum of words and with a vitality that never ceases to surprise and delight.” - Lancashire Evening Post

“A charming fable about the power of a hat that takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through French life during the Mitterrand years. Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him. After the presidential party has gone, Daniel discovers that Mitterrand's black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments' soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It's a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow … different.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Christine Jensen for the group read suggestion.)

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