As a member of Linguality’s French Book Club, you'll get six richly annotated special editions delivered right to your door. After receiving your first two books immediately, the following four titles will follow at two-month intervals. Carefully chosen by our editorial board, each selection is an enjoyable read that doubles as a perfect intermediate French course. A FREE audio CD containing a conversation with the author comes with each book, with an annotated transcript included in the appendix. Our first Linguality series is still on offer, and comprises the following titles: Chemins de fer by Benoît Duteurtre, Le Resquilleur du Louvre by Bernard Chenez, Horowitz et mon père (2006 prix Jean Freustié) by Alexis Salatko, Portraits de Pechkoff (2007 grand prix Jules Verne, 2006 prix Combourg) by Francis Huré, Le Roman de Chambord by Xavier Patier, and Le Dernier Ange by Robert de Goulaine. A brief description of each book is found below. Subscribe now and join other Francophiles in discovering some of France’s best contemporary writing. Bonne lecture!
Chemins de fer by Benoît Duteurtre
Florence, a fiftyish Parisian PR executive, spends weekends at her country home in the mountains of eastern France. She enjoys her work and the trappings of success but is caught between her two worlds—the sophisticated milieu in which she circulates in Paris and her solitary retreat in the Vosges, where she chops wood and cooks on a cast-iron stove. Every weekend she takes the train to the country, observing with increasing horror the modern “improvements” being implemented by the French national railway system—flexible pricing, automated ticket dispensers, and new train cars with rows of seats instead of compartments.
Le Resquilleur du Louvre (The Squatter in the Louvre) is the poignant, first-person narrative of a homeless man who takes up residence in the famous Paris landmark. Cold, wet, and wiping a constantly running nose, he sneaks into the museum and manages to find an out-of-the-way storage room where he can camp out. He haunts the galleries day and night, using the beauty of the collection as an escape from his solitary, melancholic existence.
Le Dernier Ange (The Last Angel)is a stylish novel that tells the story of an artistic bohemian living in 1950’s Paris who draws people into his orbit, mesmerizing them with the force of his personality and the allure of his lifestyle. Driving a vintage Hispano-Suiza, Alban cuts a fine figure among the habitués of the club where he spends his nights holding court. A young man at loose ends, Vincent, comes under his sway and the two become inseparable—that is, until Alban marries Solana, the woman Vincent has also come to love. They go their separate ways, but meet up some time later in a village on the Loir. By now, Alban is living with Isabelle, a seemingly aimless—and uninhibited—young woman. The undercurrents of Alban’s life begin to pull him under, however, and his downward spiral ends tragically. Vincent, ever loyal to his friend, realizes that he must put his own life back together and returns to a more conventional existence.
Horowitz et mon père (Horowitz and My Father) is the touching and often humorous story of Dimitri Radzanov, a classmate and rival of Vladimir Horowitz at the Kiev Conservatory, who is forced to flee to France with his mother on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. Dimitri’s mother, believing her son is more talented than Horowitz and frustrated by the latter’s rapid ascent to fame and glory, hounds Dimitri to resume the piano. Dimitri, however, has other ideas. He meets an actress who becomes the love of his life, marries and has a son, and is content to work in a record factory. The Occupation has a devastating effect on the Radzanov family and their circle of friends, but music fills their house, as Dimitri succumbs to his mother’s entreaties and takes up the piano again. Narrated by Dimitri’s son, this poignant story, populated by richly drawn characters, has an ending that will surprise and move you.
Zinovi Pechkoff, virtually unknown in the United States, is the subject of this fascinating biography, which won the prestigious Prix Combourg in 2006. The adventurous trajectory of Pechkoff’s life began in the Jewish ghetto of Nijni-Novgorod, where he was befriended and eventually adopted by Maxim Pechkoff, better known by his pen-name, Maxim Gorky. Introduced by the writer to the world beyond Russia, Pechkoff went on to join the French Foreign Legion, lost an arm at the Battle of Arras, fought with the Free French in World War II, and then, his reputation as a hero firmly established, entered the French foreign service.
For five centuries, the château of Chambord has been an emblem of the epic scope and tumultuousness of French history. This chatty, eminently readable history of the château traces the high points and low ebbs of a magnificent monument, beginning with the coup de foudre François 1er experienced when he first hunted in the forest there as a teenager. Three years into his reign as king, François experienced the first failure of his life when Charles V was named Holy Roman emperor. To compensate, he decided to raze the old hunting lodge at Chambord and build a château grander than any other in Europe. For the next three centuries, Chambord welcomed some of France’s most eminent figures.
