Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Hiroshima Mon Amour

by Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras

Jacket description/back: One of the most influential works in the history of cinema, Alain Renais's Hiroshima Mon Amour gathered international acclaim upon its release in 1959 and was awarded the International Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film festival and the New York Film Critics' Award. Ostensibly the story of a love affair between a Japanese architect and a French actress visiting Japan to make a film on... (more)

The Second Sex

by Simone De Beauvoir

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

Michael Strogoff

The Courier of the Czar

by Jules Verne

A classic tale of adventure and intrigue in the Russian Empire. Someone must warn the Governor-General of Siberia that the fierce Feofar-Khan is pouring his men into Siberia and fomenting rebellion. Only one of the Czar's couriers is capable of handling this mission--Michael Strogoff. Full color.

Death on the installment plan, (A New Directions book)

Death on the installment plan, (A New Directions book)

by Louis Ferdinand Celine

Louis-Ferdinand Celine's second novel continues the style of black humor and the delirious but immediate prose that made the author instantly famous in his native France in the aftermath of World War I. Celine's goal was to create a kind of literature that described people in honest terms, unembellished by the conventions of fiction, no matter how mean and crummy they were, and to portray them in the real ... (more)

CALIGULA & THREE PLAYS

by Albert Camus

I Spit on Your Graves (Canongate Crime Classics)

I Spit on Your Graves (Canongate Crime Classics)

by Boris Vian

Published in Paris in 1946 as a hardboiled thriller loaded with sex and blood, allegedly censored in the US and "translated" into French-- I Spit On Your Graves was both a pure mystification and direct home to American literature and movies. More deeply, it was a violent attack on racism by a jazz fan who had already befriended many black musicians and was to become the closest French friend of Ellington, Davis,... (more)

La Chute

by Albert Camus

In Search of Lost Time: Book 2

Within a Budding Grove

or, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

by Marcel Proust

First published in 1919, Within a Budding Grove was awarded the Prix Goncourt, bringing the author immediate fame. In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time , the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence. Having gradually become indifferent to Swann’s daughter Gilberte, the narrator visits the seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother and meets a... (more)

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult

by Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Be?dier

The story of the Cornish knight and the Irish princess who meet by deception, fall in love by magic, and pursue that love in defiance of heavenly and earthly laws has inspired artists through the centuries. But nowhere has it been retold with greater eloquence and dignity than this edition, which weaves several medieval sources into a seamless whole.

If Only It Were True

by Marc Levy

What do you do when you find a stranger in your closet, particularly when she's surprised that you can even see her -- and she can disappear and reappear at whim? What if she then tells you that her body is actually in a coma on the other side of town? Should you have her see a psychiatrist or should you consult one yourself? Or do you take a chance and believe in her, and allow yourself to be swept up in an... (more)

Novels in Three Lines

by Felix Feneon

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Novels in Three Lines collects more than a thousand items that appeared anonymously in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906—true stories of murder, mayhem, and everyday life presented with a ruthless economy that provokes laughter even as it shocks. This extraordinary trove, undiscovered until the 1940s and here translated for the first time into English, is the work of the... (more)

Suite Francaise

by Irene Nemirovsky

Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart.... (more)

Guignol's band,

by Louis-Ferdinand D. Celine

$L'\Arrache Coeur$

L'\Arrache Coeur

by Boris Vian

Text: French

Lady with the Camellias 1889 Alexander Dumas Fils

Lady with the Camellias 1889 Alexander Dumas Fils

by Alexandre; Lynch, Albert (illus) Dumas Fils

LE CID

by Pierre Corneille

Following the successful format of this series, this edition of one of the great plays of the French literary canon includes full annotation and an extended introduction aimed at the needs of students from A-level upwards. This edition is intended for A-level and undergraduate students of French.

Les Bouls De Bois De Dieu

by Sembene

The Death of King Arthur

by Anonymous

Recounting the final days of Arthur, this thirteenth-century French version of the Camelot legend, written by an unknown author, is set in a world of fading chivalric glory. It depicts the Round Table diminished in strength after the Quest for the Holy Grail, and with its integrity threatened by the weakness of Arthur's own knights. Whispers of Queen Guinevere's infidelity with his beloved comrade-at-arms Sir... (more)

Yvain Or The Knight With The Lion

by Chre?tien

The King could not reply to all before he saw the lady coming toward him to hold his stirrup. However, he would not wait for this, but hastened to dismount himself as soon as he caught sight of her. Then she salutes him with these words: "Welcome a hundred thousand times to the King, my lord, and blessed be his nephew, my lord Gawain!"

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Browse Subjects: french literature

Top Books

by Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras

by Simone De Beauvoir

The Courier of the Czar

by Jules Verne

by Louis Ferdinand Celine

by Albert Camus

by Boris Vian

by Albert Camus

or, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

by Marcel Proust

by Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Be?dier

by Marc Levy

by Felix Feneon

by Irene Nemirovsky

by Louis-Ferdinand D. Celine

by Boris Vian

by Alexandre; Lynch, Albert (illus) Dumas Fils

by Pierre Corneille

by Sembene

by Anonymous

by Chre?tien

by Alain Robbe-Grillet