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Middle-brow novels set in France?

54 replies

Lovage · 22/05/2014 21:18

I'm off to France for my hols and I'd love to read some novels set in France while I'm there. Not high-brow stuff, because I just know I won't fancy it while I'm away. So no Zola or Victor Hugo, thanks. I like chick lit when I'm on holiday, as well as it's reasonably well-written and not too formulaic. But something a bit more challenging than that kind of thing would also be fine too.

Can anyone recommend anything?

OP posts:
traviata · 22/05/2014 21:27

'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky.

clearsommespace · 22/05/2014 21:26

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes

SanityClause · 22/05/2014 21:25

Pure by Andrew Miller is about the exhumation of the churchyard of a church in Paris. It sounds a bit grim, put like that, but it's a quirky novel with an historical setting, and I really enjoyed it.

duchesse · 22/05/2014 21:23

Try anything by Joanne Harris- Chocolat, Five Quarters of an Orange, The Islanders.

There is another book I'm trying to remember, about a family of artists in the 1930s-1950s (father and son afair who end up with the same woman) but I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called. Will think on.