As a fun addendum to every monthly book written by a native author that we read for the book club, we also compile a list of books related to the country.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of 11 books related to France by author or subject matter which we think you’ll love.
From historical fiction to French food memoirs to science fiction to literary fiction and more, there’s hopefully a book for everyone in the list below.
Happy reading!
Written by an author from the US of French heritage:
“From a writer fast becoming one of the stars of the genre, Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of ‘The Tea Master and the Detective,’ now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.
In de Bodard's first collection come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far—future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.
In the Nebula award and Locus award winning Immersion, a young girl working in a restaurant on a colonized space station crosses paths with an older woman who has cast off her own identity. In the novelette Children of Thorns, Children of Water, a shape shifting dragon infiltrating a ruined mansion finds more than he's bargained for when his partner is snatched by eerie, child-like creatures. And in the award-winning Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight, three very different people—a scholar, an engineer, and a spaceship—all must deal with the loss of a woman who was the cornerstone of their world.
This collection includes a never-before-seen 20,000-word novella, Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness, set in Bodard's alternative dark Paris.”
Written by an author from the US:
“Absolutely nothing is sacred to Christopher Moore. The phenomenally popular, New York Times bestselling satirist whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls, ‘Stephen King with a whoopee cushion and a double-espresso imagination’ has already lampooned Shakespeare, San Francisco vampires, marine biologists, Death—even Jesus Christ and Santa Claus! Now, in his latest masterpiece, Sacré Bleu, the immortal Moore takes on the Great French Masters. A magnificent ‘Comedy d’Art’ from the author of Lamb, Fool, and Bite Me, Moore’s Sacré Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter as he joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed ‘suicide’ of Vincent van Gogh.”
“Christopher Moore is a very sick man, in the very best sense of that word.”
—Carl Hiassen
“[Moore’s novels] deftly blend surreal, occult, and even science-fiction doings with laugh-out-loud satire of contemporary culture.”
—Washington Post
(A special thank you to book club member, Katie Comfort for the suggestion.)
Written by an author born in Morocco:
“Rene is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building. She maintains a carefully constructed persona as someone uncultivated but reliable, in keeping with what she feels a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Rene: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives.
Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Rene lives with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday.
But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.”
“Clever, informative and moving … this is an admirable novel which deserves as wide a readership here as it had in France.” —The Observer
“The novel wins over its fans with a life-affirming message, a generous portion of heart and Barbery’s frequently wicked sense of humor.” —Time Magazine
(A special thank you to book club member, Linda Varick-Cooper for the suggestion.)
Written by an author from the US:
“A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now.
Paris, 1490. A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.
In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.”
“Tracy Chevalier's approach to fiction is so methodical that she threatens to turn writing about art into science.” —The New York Times
Written by a writer from the US:
“This volume brings together two delightful books—Map of Another Town and A Considerable Town—by one of our most beloved food and travel writers. In her inimitable style, here M.F.K. Fisher tells the stories—and reveals the secrets—of two quintessential French cities.
Map of Another Town, Fisher’s memoir of the French provincial capital of Aix-en-Provence is, as the author tells us, “my picture, my map, of a place and therefore of myself,’ and a vibrant and perceptive profile of the kinship between a person and a place. Then, in A Considerable Town, she scans the centuries to reveal the ancient sources that clarify the Marseille of today and the indestructible nature of its people, and in so doing weaves a delightful journey filtered through the senses of a profound writer.”
A novel from a German writer:
“On a beautifully restored barge on the Seine, Jean Perdu runs a bookshop; or rather a 'literary apothecary', for this bookseller possesses a rare gift for sensing which books will soothe the troubled souls of his customers.
The only person he is unable to cure, it seems, is himself. He has nursed a broken heart ever since the night, twenty-one years ago, when the love of his life fled Paris, leaving behind a handwritten letter that he has never dared read. His memories and his love have been gathering dust—until now. The arrival of an enigmatic new neighbour in his eccentric apartment building on Rue Montagnard inspires Jean to unlock his heart, unmoor the floating bookshop and set off for Provence, in search of the past and his beloved.”
“Nina George tells us clever things about love, about reading that 'puts a bounce in your step,' about tango in Provence, and about truly good food. . . . One of those books that gets you thinking about whom you need to give it to as a gift even while you're still reading it, because it makes you happy and should be part of any well-stocked apothecary.” —Hamburger Morgenpost (Germany)
Written by a writer from the UK:
“July 1209: in Carcassonne a 17-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in keeping the secret of the labyrinth safe . . .
July 2005: Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees. Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol carved into the rock, she realises she's disturbed something that was meant to remain hidden. Somehow, a link to a horrific past - her past - has been revealed.”
“The author has combined an ingenious adventure story with a wonderfully detailed account of the historical background of the Languedoc ... the result is entirely compelling and full of incidental pleasures.” —The Times
“Saturated with a passionate understanding of the region's past in a way that puts more conventional historical accounts to shame”— The Guardian
Book on French cooking by a writer from the US:
“Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city and after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he finally moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discovered it's a different world en France.
From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men's footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David's story of how he came to fall in love with—and even understand—this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city.
When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men's dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything.
Once you stop laughing, the more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar–Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha–Crème Fraîche Cake, will have you running to the kitchen for your own taste of Parisian living.”
Memoir from a Australian writer:
“A delightful new twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes readers on a tour fraught with culture clashes but rife with insight and deadpan humour—a charming true story of what happens when Sarah meets a very French Frenchman.
Backpacking around Europe, twenty-something Sarah Turnbull meets Frederic and impulsively accepts his invitation to visit him for a week in Paris. Eight years later, she is still there —and married to him. The feisty Sydney journalist swaps vegemite for vichyssoise and all things French, but commits the fatal errors of bowling up to strangers at classy receptions, helping herself to champagne, laughing too loudly and (quelle horreur!) rushing out for a baguette in her 'pantalons de jogging'.
But Paris' maddening, mysterious charm proves irresistible and Sarah makes spectacular progress. She finds work as a freelance journalist, learns to survive Parisian dinner parties and how to deal with grim-faced officialdom.
As she navigates the highs and lows of Parisian life, covering the haute couture fashions shows and discovering the hard way the paradoxes of France today, Sarah succeeds in becoming 'almost French'.”
Time travel novel from a US-born author who grew up in France:
“The Citadel of Weeping Pearls was a great wonder; a perfect meld between cutting-edge technology and esoteric sciences—its inhabitants capable of teleporting themselves anywhere, its weapons small and undetectable and deadly.
Thirty years ago, threatened by an invading fleet from the Dai Viet Empire, the Citadel disappeared and was never seen again. But now the empire itself is under siege, on the verge of a war against an enemy that turns their own mindships against them; and the Empress, who once gave the order to raze the Citadel, is in desperate need of its weapons. Meanwhile, on a small isolated space station, an engineer obsessed with the past works on a machine that will send her thirty years back, to the height of the Citadel’s power.
But the Citadel’s disappearance still extends chains of grief and regret all the way into the fraught atmosphere of the Imperial Court; and this casual summoning of the past might have world-shattering consequences . . .
A new book set in the award-winning, critically acclaimed Xuya universe.”
Science fiction novella from a US-born author who grew up in France:
“The Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards novella finalist, from the author of the acclaimed Obsidian and Blood trilogy (view on Amazon), and set in the same universe as the Nebula and Locus Award winning Immersion included in Clarkesworld (view on Amazon)...
For generations Prosper Station has thrived under the guidance of its Honoured Ancestress: born of a human womb, the station’s artificial intelligence has offered guidance and protection to its human relatives.
But war has come to the Dai Viet Empire. Prosper’s brightest minds have been called away to defend the Emperor; and a flood of disorientated refugees strain the station’s resources. As deprivations cause the station’s ordinary life to unravel, uncovering old grudges and tearing apart the decimated family, Station Mistress Quyen and the Honoured Ancestress struggle to keep their relatives united and safe. What Quyen does not know is that the Honoured Ancestress herself is faltering, her mind eaten away by a disease that seems to have no cure; and that the future of the station itself might hang in the balance…”