Book picks similar to
Bluebirds by Catulle Mendès


snuggly-books
fantasy
fiction
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Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper


Charles Perrault - 1697
    In this lavishly illustrated retelling of the classic fairytale, Camille Rose Garcia reimagines Cinderella through her distinctive visual aesthetic. Hers is a Cinderella for the twenty-first century: Dark, compelling, vibrant, and enthralling.

The Tenant


Roland Topor - 1964
    More than a tale of possession, the novel probes disturbing depths of guilt, paranoia, and sexual obsession with an unsparing detachment.

Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers


Pierre Guyotat - 1967
    This is the first English translation of French writer, Pierre Guyotat's legendary novel, which was recently included in "Le Monde"'s "100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century." A violent collision of brutal warfare and sexual ecstasy, Guyotat is said to have hallucinated the subject matter as a young soldier during the Algerian war, where the novel is set.

Selected Poems


Charles Baudelaire - 1860
    'Tableaux parisiens' portrays the brutal life of Paris's thieves, drunkards and prostitutes amid the debris of factories and poorhouses. In love poems such as 'Le Beau Navire', flights of lyricism entwine with languorous eroticism, while prose poems such as 'La Chambre Double' deal with the agonies of artistic creation and mortality. With their startling combination of harsh reality and sublime beauty, formal ingenuity and revolutionary poetic language, these poems, including a generous selection from Les Fleurs du Mal, show Baudelaire as one of the most influential poets of the nineteenth century.

The Balcony


Jean Genet - 1956
    Here men from all walks of life don the garb of their fantasies and act them out: a man from the gas company wears the robe and mitre of a bishop; another customer becomes a flagellant judge, and still another a victorious general, while a bank clerk defiles the Virgin mary. These costumed diversions take place while outside a revolution rages on which has isolated the brothel from the rest of the rebel-controlled city. In a stunning series of macabre, climactic scenes, Genet presents his caustic view of man and society.

Two by Duras: The Slut of the Normandy Coast / The Atlantic Man


Marguerite Duras - 1993
    Contains two novellas:The slut of the Normandy CoastThe Atlantic manandAn interview with Marguerite Duras by Ana Maria Moix --An afterword by Alberto Manguel.

Island of Point Nemo


Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès - 2014
    His novel Where Tigers Are at Home won the Fnac, Giono, and Médicis Prizes. Island of Point Nemo is his ninth novel.Hannah Chute has an MA in translation from the University of Rochester. In 2015, she received the Banff Centre Scholarship to work on Island of Point Nemo, her first full-length translation.

The Book of Nights


Sylvie Germain - 1985
    Blending the historical with the supernatural, the comic with the grotesque, the lyrical with the brutal, Sylvie Germain tells the story of humanity's strivings and vanity, of the profound injustices that govern our relations, and of the fundamental strength that allows us ultimately to triumph over carnage and degradation.

The First Day


Marc Levy - 2009
    Together they embark on an extraordinary adventure which takes them from the banks of Lake Turkana in the heart of Africa to the mountains of China. They seek to reveal the object's hidden secrets and answer the age-old question: how did life begin?Keira is a passionate and ambitious archaeologist leading her first dig in the isolated Omo Valley in Ethiopia. When a sand storm destroys the site, she has no choice but to abandon her field work and go home: to Paris, to her sister and to the mundane city life she despises. She returns with an unusual stone, which was given to her by a local orphan boy. While visiting the museum where her sister works, a probing elderly professor takes a particular interest in Keira and above all in the talisman she wears around her neck. Adrian is an accomplished astrophysicist, who has taken a leave of absence from the illustrious Academy of Sciences in London to pursue his study of the stars in a remote observatory on the Atacama plateau in Chile. Ill-adapted to the altitude, he has to be rushed back to England before he can fully pursue his bold and unconventional research. Keira and Adrian's paths briefly cross while competing for an illustrious grant in London. Years earlier they had spent one brief, romantic summer together before going their separate ways. Keira leaves her necklace behind in Adrian's apartment, sparking his interest as a scientist and fuelling his hopes for a rekindling of old passions. With the help of a hapless administrator from the Academy, Adrian begins his own investigation of the stone's origins, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is not the only one interested in the mysterious object, and that the other party is determined to get hold of it at any cost. Adrian seeks out Keira who has returned to Africa. What innocently begins as a common pursuit of knowledge soon takes a dangerous turn when their guide is found dead. Despite heightening threats to their own safety, Keira and Adrian continue their search, which takes them across the world, from cutting edge laboratories to venerable museums, from forgotten Greek islands to monasteries hidden in the mountains. They follow maps written in the stars and clues buried within the earth, always guided by the slowly unraveling secrets of the strange object from Ethiopia. But the professor and his cohorts are always on their tracks and one step ahead... "A wonderful read" - Le Parisien "Over the years, Marc Levy has seduced millions of readers. What's his secret? He writes about quintessential themes, such as love, friendship, and the mysteries of life, in an accessible way." - Paris Match "A page-turning adventure story." - Nice Matin

Snapshots


Alain Robbe-Grillet - 1962
    This collection of brilliant short pieces introduces the reader to those techniques employed by Robbe-Grillet in his longer works. These intriguing, gemlike stories represent his most accessible fiction.

The Wall


Jean-Paul Sartre - 1939
    Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out.This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction to a collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it.

The Ogre


Michel Tournier - 1970
    It follows the passage of strange, gentle Abel Tiffauges from submissive schoolboy to "ogre" of the Nazi school at the castle of Kaltenborn, taking us deeper into the dark heart of fascism than any novel since The Tin Drum. Until the very last page, when Abel meets his mystic fate in the collapsing ruins of the Third Reich, it shocks us, dazzles us, and above all holds us spellbound.

The Most Precious of Cargoes


Jean-Claude Grumberg - 2019
    The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them, making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night, his wife prays for a child.A Jewish father rides on a train holding twin babies. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed both children. In hopes of saving them both, he wraps his daughter in a shawl and throws her into the forest.While foraging for food, the wife finds a bundle, a baby girl wrapped in a shawl. Although she knows harboring this baby could lead to her death, she takes the child home.Set against the horrors of the Holocaust and told with a fairytale-like lyricism, The Most Precious of Cargoes is a fable about family and redemption which reminds us that humanity can be found in the most inhumane of places.

The Front Seat Passenger


Pascal Garnier - 1997
    But when Sylvie is involved in a fatal car accident, Fabien is stunned to discover she had a lover who died with her. Harbouring thoughts of revenge, he tracks down the lover's widow, Martine, and begins stalking her. Fabien is desperate to get Martine on her own. But that won't happen until he deals with her protective best friend, Madeleine...

The Great Short Stories Of De Maupassant


Guy de Maupassant - 1939
    With and introduction by Wallace Brockway.