TOP 5 BOOKS FOR YOUR WEEK-END
07/14 (Bastille Day)-15/2012
Here are the latest titles added to my Goodreads TBR,
I suggest them as the top 5 books for your week-end.
FICTION
Stoner
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
Paperback, 278 pages
Published May 5th 2010 by NYRB Classics (first published 1965)
ISBN1590171993
Crossing to Safety
Called a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.
Paperback, 368 pages
Published April 9th 2002 by Modern Library(first published 1987)
ISBN037575931X
NON-FICTION
In Honor of Bastille Day, this Sat July 14th,
these 3 books are related to France
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris
Walking is the best way to experience the romance, history, and off-the-beaten-path pleasures of Paris (and life itself, perhaps). In that spirit, the author of the popular “Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas” reveals the most beautiful walks through Paris.
Paperback, 320 pages
Published May 24th 2011 by Harper Perennial
ISBN 0061998540
The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City
Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he 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.
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 readers running to the kitchen once they stop laughing.
The Sweet Life in Paris is a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections.
Hardcover, 282 pages
Published May 5th 2009 by Broadway(first published April 25th 2009)
ISBN 0767928881
A Town Like Paris: Falling in Love in the City of Light
At the age of twenty-eight, stuck in a dead-end job in London, and on the run from a broken heart, Bryce Corbett takes a job in Paris, home of l’amour and la vie boheme; he is determined to make the city his own—no matter how many bottles of Bordeaux it takes. He rents an apartment in Le Marais, the heart of the city’s gay district, hardly the ideal place for a guy hoping to woo French women. He quickly settles into the French work/life balance with its mandatory lunch hour and six weeks of paid vacation. Fully embracing his newfound culture, Corbett frequents smoky cafes, appears on a television game show, hobnobs with celebrities at Cannes, and attempts to parse the nuances behind French politics and why French women really don’t get fat. When he falls in love with a Parisian showgirl, he realizes that his adopted city has become home.As lively and winning as Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence and Sarah Turnbull’s Almost French, A Town Like Paris evokes the beauty, delights, and charms of Paris for an ever-eager audience of armchair travelers.
Paperback, 304 pages
Published April 1st 2008 by Crown Publishing Group(first published 2007)
ISBN 0767928172
HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THOSE?
ANY OTHER BOOK ON FRANCE YOU WOULD RECOMMEND?
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Words And Peace 
Great finds! All new titles to me.
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The first 2 are classics, but I haven’t read them yet either
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All of these books are new to me, but all of them look like good reads.
I hope you enjoy them.
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Thanks, I need to tackle the 2 classics one of these days
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These all look good, but I especially am eager to investigate the three books on Paris and the last two in particular! My reading list gets longer than the hours I have to read!
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There are actually often new and fascinating books on France published every month. My TBR is at 197 on Goodreads….how many lives will I need?? … sigh
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I’ve read two of these. I’m finding all kinds of new ideas this month. Here’s One I’m just starting
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This one is also on my TBR. Which ones did you read? did you like them? I just started Le Road Trip, and I love it, beautiful book, well done, and true. I’m also in another book related to France: The Second Empress, by Michelle Moran – so good HF
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I’ve been wanting to read both Stoner, and Crossing to Safety. I have similar taste in books as you it seems:)
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Yes, I have noticed that
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Great choices! Crossing to Safety may be my all-time favorite novel and Stoner is my most recent purchase 🙂
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Tell me, what do you like so much in: Crossing to Safety?
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Besides Stegner’s beautiful writing, I love the character development in this quiet novel. It is so interesting to see how their relationships (friendship and marriages) evolve over the decades. Really must reread it soon!
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Thanks, sounds good
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