Recommended Books

There are numerous books on all aspects of French history and society -- ranging from the very general, such as the section on France in the Encyclopedia Americana, International Edition (Grolier, 1989), which presents an excellent, illustrated overview of the French people and their way of life, to the very specific, such as Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall's Permanent Parisians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of Paris (Chelsea Green, 1986), which depicts the lives of famous French and expatriates who are buried in Paris.

History

In addition to the encyclopedia reference above, a broad overview of French history can be found in other encyclopedias and general history books. One very good one is History of France by Guillaume de Bertier de Savigny and David H. Pinkney, a comprehensive history with illustrations and plenty of obscure but interesting facts.

Two books that present French life and society in the 17th century are Warren Lewis's The Splendid Century and Madame de Sévigné's Selected Letters, edited by Leonard W. Tancock, which contains imaginative and witty letters written to her daughter during the reign of Louis XIV. Simon Schama's Citizens is a long but enjoyable new history of the French Revolution.

Moving into the 20th century, Pleasure of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France, by Charles Rearick, depicts public diversions in the changing and troubled times of the Third Republic. Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-1939 is a fascinating collection of excerpts from Janet Flanner's "Letters from Paris" column of The New Yorker. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre have written a popular history of the liberation of Paris in 1944 called Is Paris Burning?

Finally, two unusual approaches to French history are Rudolph Chleminski's The French at Table, a funny and honest history of why the French know how to eat better than anyone and how they go about it, and Paris: A Century of Change, 1878-1978, by Normal Evenson, a notable study of the urban development of Paris.

Travel

Since 1323 some 10,000 books have been devoted to exploring Paris. One of the best is Paris: Capital of the World by Patrice Higonnet. This book takes a fresh, social, cultural, and political look at this City of Lights. Higonnet even explores Paris as "the capital of sex," and in contrast the "capital of art." The gang's all here from Balzac to Zola.

Showing a greater fondness for gossip is Alistair Horne in his Seven Ages of Paris. From the Roman founding up to the student riots of 1968, this is one of the most amusing books on Paris we've ever read. Horne is not a timid writer. He calls the Palais de Chaillot fascistic and hideous, the Pompidour Center a horror. We even learn that a woman once jumped off the Eiffel Tower, bounced off the roof of a parked car, and survived.

In The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris, Edmund White wants the reader to experience Paris as Parisians do. Hard to translate exactly, a flâneur is someone who strolls, loafs, or idles. With White, you can circumnavigate Paris as whim dictates.

Biography

You can get a more intimate look at history through biographies of historical figures. The best book yet on the architect who changed the face of Paris is Haussmann: His Life and Times and the Making of Modern Paris by Patrick Camiller. Hugh Ross Williamson brings to life Catherine de Médicis in his Catherine de Medici by combining text and magnificent illustrations from the art of the 16th century. This queen of France was the dominant personality during her nation's religious wars and mother of three kings of France, a queen of Spain, and a queen of Navarre.

Representing a very different era are A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's recollections of Paris during the 1920s, and Morley Callaghan's That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Some Others, an anecdotal account of the same period. Another great read is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein. It's not only the account of 30 years in Paris, but also the autobiography of Gertrude Stein.

Simone de Beauvoir, by Deirdre Bair, was described by one critic as ". . . a biography 'à l'Americaine' -- that is to say, long, with all the warts of its subject unsparingly described." The story of the great feminist intellectual was based in part on tape-recorded conversations and unpublished letters.

Colette: A Life, by Herbert R. Lottman, is a painstakingly researched biography of the celebrated French writer and her fascinating life -- which included not only writing novels and appearing in cabarets but also dabbling in lesbianism and perhaps even collaborating with the enemy during the Nazi occupation.

The Arts

Much of France's beauty can be found in its art. Three books that approach France from this perspective are The History of Impressionism, by John Rewald, which is a collection of writings about and quotations from the artists, illuminating this period in art; The French Through Their Films, by Robin Buss, an exploration of more than 100 widely circulated films; and The Studios of Paris: The Capital of Art in the Late Nineteenth Century, by John Milner. In the last, Milner presents the dynamic forces that made Paris one of the most complex centers of the art world in the early modern era.

Nightlife of Paris: The Art of Toulouse-Lautrec, by Patrick O'Connor, is an enchanting 80-page book with anecdotes about the hedonistic luminaries of Belle Epoque Paris, with paintings, sketches, and lithographs by the artist.

Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet, by Otto Friedrich, takes its inspiration from the celebrated artwork in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. From here the book takes off on an anecdote-rich gossipy chain of historical associations, tracing the rise of the Impressionist school of modern painting, but incorporating social commentary, too, such as the pattern of prostitution and venereal disease in 19th-century France.

Fiction

The Chanson de Roland, edited by F. Whitehead, written between the 11th and 14th centuries, is the earliest and most celebrated of the "songs of heroic exploits." The Misanthrope and Tartuffe are two masterful satires on the frivolity of the 17th century by the great comic dramatist Molière. François-Marie Arouet Voltaire's Candide is a classic satire attacking the philosophy of optimism and the abuses of the ancient regime.

A few of the masterpieces of the 19th century are Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, in which the carefully wrought characters, setting, and plot attest to Flaubert's genius in presenting the tragedy of Emma Bovary; Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, a classic tale of social oppression and human courage set in the era of Napoleon I; and Selected Stories by the master of short stories, Guy de Maupassant.

Honoré de Balzac's La comédie humaine depicts life in France from the fall of Napoleon to 1848. Henry James's The Ambassadors and The American both take place in Paris. The Vagabond, by Colette, evokes the life of a French music-hall performer.

Tropic of Cancer is the semiautobiographical story of Henry Miller's years in Paris. One of France's leading thinkers, Jean-Paul Sartre, shows individuals struggling against their freedom in No Exit and Three Other Plays.

For more recent reads you might pick up a tattered copy of The Da Vinci Code (if you haven't already read it), or David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day, revealing the viewpoint of an American tourist as he tries to absorb French culture.