Adult books from France
Recommended adult books (12)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into adult here are some adult books from France for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans EN
Description:
Against Nature is Huysmans's great fin-de-siècle novel anticipating many of the strains of modernism in its appreciation of Baudelaire, Moreau, Redon, Mallarmé and Poe. This new translation is supplemented by a critically up-to-date introduction and indispensable notes which enhance the understanding of a highly allusive work.
2.
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne EN
Description:
Verne's classic novel of global voyaging One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand - whether train or elephant - overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world.... continue
3.
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin EN
Description:
A 2020 INDIES INTRODUCE PICK A POIGNANT RUNAWAY BESTSELLER full of French charm and memorable characters, Fresh Water for Flowers is Valérie Perrin's English debut. Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues--gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest--visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences. Violette's routine is disrupted one day by the arriv... continue
4.
Description:
Translated from the French by Tanya Leslie 'Absolutely extraordinary' - Liberation In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and single, realises she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague. Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep her child. This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. Abortion was illegal at the time and she attempted, in vain, to self-administer with a knitting needle and nearly died. An exceptionally moving account of a tragic experience.
6.
L'étrangère by Valérie Toranian FR
Description:
"Elle tricote. Je sors mon carnet. - Raconte-moi précisément ce qui s'est passé dans les convois... - Plus tard... Je rêve de recueillir cette histoire qui est aussi la mienne et elle s'y oppose comme une gamine butée. - Quand plus tard ? - Quand tu auras eu ton bébé". Aravni garde farouchement le silence sur son passé. Sa petite-fille, Valérie, aimerait pourtant qu'elle lui raconte son histoire, l'Arménie, Alep, Constantinople et Marseille. Dans ce récit qui traverse le siècle, elle écrit le roman de la vie, ou plutôt des vies d'Aravni : de la toute jeune fille fuyant le génocide arménien en ... continue
7.
Nana by Émile Zola EN
Description:
"Nana is probably the most famous character in Les Rougon-Macquart. The novel that bears her name, published in 1880, is the ninth volume in the series. It consists of a number of episodes, or tableaux, in the short but spectacular life of Ana Coupeau, the fourth child of Gervaise Macquart. We first saw her as a young girl in L'Assommoir (1877), her father an abusive alcoholic, her mother Gervaise reduced to a similar degraded state. She works as a milliner's assistant and dabbles in casual street prostitution. She has a child by an unknown father when she is sixteen. Having escaped from the s... continue
8.
Nana by Emile Zola DE
Description:
„Aufstieg von der Straßenprostituierten zum Mitglied der Pariser Society: Was heute schon mehr oder minder unmöglich wäre, gestaltete sich 1880 nicht leichter. In Zolas Roman gelingt es Nana dennoch. Als sie ihre Sexualität instrumentalisiert um die höheren Stände aus Politik und Presse zu infiltrieren, muss sie feststellen, dass deren Lasterhaftigkeit und Heuchelei grenzenlos ist.“ Redaktion Gröls-Verlag (Edition Werke der Weltliteratur)
9.
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne) EN
Description:
Perhaps one of the greatest works of French literature is Madame de Lafayette's The Princess of Cleves, often described as the first of all "modern" novels. This classic translation, with an introduction, by the late English novelist and biographer Nancy Mitford, was first brought out in 1951 by New Directions. It is now made available as a New Directions Paperbook. Published in 1678 and written by Marie Madeleine Roche de la Vergne, Countess de Lafayette - a Parisian lady of fashion and great wit, who probably received help from her friend the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, author of the famous Max... continue
10.
The Woman Destroyed by Simone De Beauvoir EN
Description:
By the world-famous writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, here are three moving stories which eloquently express her understanding of women and the crises they face in mid-life.