Not quite a century ago, on August 29, 1911, thousands of people began flocking to the Louvre (among them, Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod) to gaze at a blank space on a wall. The 49-acre Louvre – still the largest museum in the world today – had been closed for most of the preceding week for the investigation of a singular occurrence: the most famous painting in the world had disappeared from that blank spot.

This article is filed under Art, France, Italy, Non-Fiction Reviews.

Much more serious, though, is the book’s take on the medieval world as a whole. Alongside the loud cynicism of its insistence that the battles are meaningless, the church is corrupt and the aristocracy live in a different world, Agincourt continually asserts a broadly positive, modern outlook.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, France, Great Britain, Historical Fiction, Military.

How might we doubt that any long dead, wholly forgotten writer, who has re-emerged and within a few short years risen to a second round of best-sellerdom with three newly-discovered novels is a truly remarkable craftsman? Irene Nemirovsky first came to our attention in 2004, sixty years after her demise at the hands of the Nazis in Auschwitz, when a novel of hers was found “buried” within her journal entries.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, France.

The early resistors soon discover that the Nazis don’t view their activities with similar lightheartedness. Oblivious to the reason why a German car might be parked outside the hospital her mother is in, Humbert walks straight into hell. A member of the Gestapo has infiltrated and betrayed their group, and she and her friends are rounded up for a show trial. It is only April 1941. What follows is an account that tests our 21st century belief in rationalism.

This article is filed under France, History, Military, Non-Fiction Reviews.

Femi-lit doesn’t make as many headlines as its younger sister, but it shares certain familial traits. The protagonist is usually a woman in her thirties or forties, intelligent, independent, and confronted with the crises that arise in one’s middle years – the aftermath of a divorce, the death of a parent, a loveless relationship, the seesaw of work and family, the lack of a child. And as with chick lit, it is often love or a change of place that proves the catalyst for change.

This article is filed under Anthropology, Fiction Reviews, France.

In twelve short years – from 1788 to 1800 – the world changed, with the late eighteenth century emerging as one of the most momentous, if restless, eras in human history. In Russia, a great dynasty would be toppled; in France, revolution and the guillotine would hold sway; and, in America, the nascent democracy would enter the most critical period of its short existence.

This article is filed under France, History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Russia.

Silvio’s tale proceeds to unravel the neighborhood secrets, as he uncovers them with a skill that only an exquisite sensibility like Némirovsky’s commands, revealing shockers — illicit passion, intense jealousy, illegitimate offspring, and … murder! Such untold events have remained long hidden, if gossiped over by villagers, vicious events these country people chose never to acknowledge.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, France.

“There is a universality to food that makes it easily accessible to the reader, and a long tradition of sensuality related to the subject. As newborns we first experience the world through two senses — taste and smell. That means that our emotional response to a taste or a smell can act upon us at a very powerful, subconscious level.”

This article is filed under Food, France, Non-Fiction Reviews, Writers.