Reviews 

Another very good book, although completely different. Set just after the end of the 2nd World War, Hilary Wainwright is an ex-British...

A library book via P. A P.I. Marc Novak is approached by a mysterious official-sounding couple to investigate the death of Lady Di In...

One via P. Very light, Parisian story about a man who inadvertently steals Francois Mitterand’s hat from a Paris restaurant. He...

This is pretty low grade. From the writer of the French TV serial 'Spiral', which we enjoy. This is just violent turf wars and political...

This is a brilliant book. I am not sure I had ever completed it before (the left had side of the spine is suspiciously unbent) and I had...

P enjoyed this; I found it readable but no more. It is short – about a Parisian girl who finds an eccentric Iranian who distributes books...

Local library now open again, post lockdown, so opportunity to try some books. This was very good – an almost 19th century novel written...

I have read this before, I think a very long time ago, as I had forgotten most of the plot. Long, hard work, but brilliant. The plot can...

I am reading these in chronological order as I find the complete works pretty un-navigable on my kindle. I have read this before, but...

I read this as a not very good Bildungsroman. About a young Provencal man who has come to Paris and ends up living in pretty abject...

Totally different from 760 above, unless I have misunderstood 760. This is quite a serious and challenging book, about a father murdering...

Heard about this guy on Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’. Apparently quite a well known writer, has written loads, Nobel Prize listed, but I, like...

Remarkably, there was another book of hers in the house, which obviously belonged to my Dad. This was totally different, although the...

Brilliant. As the blurb/a reviewer says, partly a hymn to Paris, but also via the alternating and very different narrators, an...

Mankell’s last book, completed I think not long before he died. Unsurprisingly, quite a gloomy book, about an elderly retired doctor...

Didn’t plan to read another Zola, but finished no.356 unexpectedly in bed and needed something else to read. Zola is a terribly prolix...

This is a very grim book, in the vein of 'La Terre', but set amongst the Parisian working class. The central figure is Gervaise, who has...

A short and unplanned read post no.339 above. This is a very good book, but as I had forgotten about it I can’t think of much to say. If...

Plassans is the village where no.315 takes place, so we have moved back from Paris to Provence. A priest is taken in as lodger by a...

Zola’s books can be hard work. This is no.3 in the Rougon series; another completely different set of characters. This is set in the...