A hotchpotch of journal entries from the last seven years to do with living around Paris, surprisingly free of the angst found in much of her other writing.
A brilliant hour-by-hour recreation of what happened on 27 July 1794, from the midnight when Robespierre was in full control to the midnight when he was on the run.
A fictional portrait of the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - pilot, aristocrat and author of Le Petit Prince. Iturbe's last novel, The Librarian of Auschwitz, was a huge success.
Begins with a Perec epigraph: "De l'autobus, je regarde Paris" - and Elkin does, in a diary of vignettes about the 'infra-ordinary' (Perec again): fellow commuters, a diversion, a girl with ... read more
A monograph on one of the most extraordinary French châteaux. Built in the C17th, Vaux-le-Vicomte was designed by Louis Le Vau in collaboration with the painter Charles Le Brun and the land... read more
Artisan trades of Paris - a ribbon maker, the boiseries of Feau et Cie, pastel crayons still rolled as they were in the time of Degas, etc., presented by a designer, artist and shopkeeper. M... read more
For those who would sell their soul for an éclair. Mille-feuilles for autumn, croissants for Sunday mornings, crêpes for tea, cakes and puddings so sublime your hips will forgive you.
Mathilde Carre joined the French Resistance in 1940 but was captured by the Germans a year later and betrayed her network. She survived working as as a double agent and then - possibly - a t... read more
A panoramic account by the distinguished Harvard historian of five generations of a French provincial family originally from Angouleme, crammed with stories and archival research. ER has a d... read more
An elderly woman in a home is losing her power of speech: a therapist delicately helps her to unburden herself of a secret... The dark horse of new French fiction.
An English translation of Ernaux's memoir about her father and life in small-town France, first published in 1984: a counterpart to 'A Woman's Story' published in English last year. Both are... read more
Following the catastrophe in which Henry's heir was drowned, England sank into a terrible civil war in which English, Normans, Scots and Welsh competed in the ancient game of thrones.
The clandestine manoeuvres of one branch of military intelligence, responsible for saving thousands of lives. Airey Neave, Jimmy Langley, Sam Derry and Mary Lindell emerge as central figures... read more
The eponymous box is a secret spying agency, whose antics in 1989 following the Lockerbie bombing are discovered by MI5 in 2020. Some nasty Iranians are involved and Lachlan, the man in the ... read more
As a war photographer and his driver travel through Germany in late 1945, it becomes apparent that they have different reasons for wanting to be there.
Three dark-skinned bodies wash up on the beach of a Mediterranean island. The attempts of the islanders to hush up the implications are upset by the arrival of a detective, who unpicks their... read more
Brighton, 1968: a film producer, a novelist and an actress find their private lives encroaching into their public worlds. Pressures build on the trio...
A facsimile edition of Carmontelle's original, illustrated presentation of the 8-hectare garden he designed for the Duc de Chartres in 1779, on the cusp of the French Revolution. It had an i... read more
These lovely house-blessers are the latest subject for Moss, following his 'Wren' and ' Robin', and a decade after Horatio Clare's glorious 'A Single Swallow'. Illustrated.
Hugely successful in France, this autobiographical novel moves from the author's happy childhood in Algeria to Paris, where she navigates her own sexuality and the tensions of existing betwe... read more
This fine debut turns about Margot, the natural child of a prominent French politician: adolescence, with all its tender spots and short focus, resentful, impressionable, knowing-it-all but ... read more
SOE sent more than 400 agents into France of whom 39 were women. Vigurs traces them all here, not just the well known ones, and sets them in their context.
Signac was one of the original organizers of the Salon des Independents in 1884 and was its president for nearly 30 years. Impressionists, Fauves, Symbolists, Nabis - like the Hendersons, ... read more
A deft and witty excursion to Paris for coffee with Sartre, de Beauvoir et alia by Sarah Bakewell; a winter and spring on the shores of Lake Baikal with only a portable library and ice - and... read more