France

Americans in Paris

Adam Gopnik (editor)

Gopnik gathers three centuries of writing about Paris into a single anthology, chosen with the eye of a longtime New Yorker essayist. It offers a broad, layered introduction to how outsiders have seen the city across generations.

Paris: The Novel

Edward Rutherfurd

Rutherfurd's novel moves back and forth across seven hundred years of Parisian history, following the threads of art, architecture, and culture that shaped the city over time. It is an ambitious way to absorb centuries of Paris in a single sweeping narrative.

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway

Published after his death, Hemingway's memoir recalls his years in 1920s Paris among the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound among them. It remains one of the most quoted and beloved accounts of literary Paris ever written.

Mastering the Art of French Eating

Ann Mah

Mah traces her own path through the depths of French cuisine, moving city by city and dish by dish. It is a personal and approachable entry point for anyone who wants to understand French food beyond the postcard version.

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Edited by Ronald de Leeuw, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans

Few artists left behind letters as self-revealing as Van Gogh's, and this selection traces his life and work through Arles, Saint-Rémy, and finally Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. It offers a rare, unfiltered view into the mind of one of France's most complex and celebrated painters.

Vincent's Colors

Vincent van Gogh and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Drawn from Van Gogh's own letters to his brother Theo, this book pairs his words about color and painting directly with the works they describe. It is a striking, accessible companion for anyone planning to stand in front of his paintings in person.

Paul Cézanne: Painting People

Mary Tompkins Lewis

Lewis surveys five decades of Cézanne's portraiture through twenty four works, drawing on the Aix-en-Provence painter's most personal and least discussed body of work. It is a scholarly but accessible look at a side of Cézanne many visitors to Provence never encounter.

Tender is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Set among the wealthy expatriates of the interwar South of France, Fitzgerald's most personal novel follows a psychiatrist's marriage to his patient and its slow unraveling. It captures the glamour and undertow of the Riviera at its most self-destructive.

French Riviera and Its Artists

John Baxter

Baxter traces the artists, writers, actors, and politicians who gathered on the Côte d'Azur during its golden age, and the dramatic lives they led there. It is a lively account of the Riviera's reputation as one of the world's great creative playgrounds.

A Year in Provence

Peter Mayle

Mayle recounts his move into a two hundred year old stone farmhouse in the Lubéron, and the slower rhythm of life he found there, governed by seasons rather than days. It remains the classic account of falling for Provence at close range.

Adventures on the Wine Route

Kermit Lynch

The California based importer recounts his travels through Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Loire, Beaujolais, the Rhône, Provence, and Languedoc, and the winemakers behind the bottles. It is a classic of wine writing, as much about the people as the wine itself.

The Popes of Avignon: A Century in Exile

Edwin Mullins

Mullins tells the story of the so-called Babylonian captivity, when seven successive popes ruled from Avignon rather than Rome during a turbulent century of transition in Europe. It places the city's papal history within the broader story of the medieval world giving way to the Renaissance.

The Lady Queen

Nancy Goldstone

In 1348, Joanna I, Queen of Naples, stood trial for murder before the Pope in Avignon and was acquitted against overwhelming odds. Goldstone traces her return to rule Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily for more than thirty years afterward, one of medieval Europe's most improbable political survivals.

Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours

Robert Kehew, Ezra Pound, W. D. Snodgrass

The troubadours of medieval southern France wrote in Occitan of romantic love, setting the template for lyric poetry that followed them for centuries. This collection preserves their original verse forms, bringing their melodies and intricate stanzas back into English.

The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral

Robert A. Scott

Scott examines why medieval builders raised Gothic cathedrals, how they accomplished it, and what beliefs and ambitions, both religious and political, shaped their construction. It offers essential context for standing inside any of France's great cathedrals with a fuller understanding of what they represent.