Book picks similar to
If it Die... by André Gide


french
biography
autobiography
classics

I Await the Devil's Coming


Mary MacLane - 1902
    Written in potent, raw prose that propelled the author to celebrity upon publication, the book has become almost completely forgotten.In the early 20th century, MacLane's name was synonymous with sexuality; she is widely hailed as being one of the earliest American feminist authors, and critics at the time praised her work for its daringly open and confessional style. In its first month of publication, the book sold 100,000 copies—a remarkable number for a debut author, and one that illustrates MacLane's broad appeal.Now, with a new foreword written by critic Jessa Crispin, I Await The Devil's Coming stands poised to renew its reputation as one of America's earliest and most powerful accounts of feminist thought and creativity.

Borstal Boy


Brendan Behan - 1958
    . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the window . . ." The men were, of course, the police, and seventeen-year-old Behan. He spent three years as a prisoner in England, primarily in Borstal (reform school), and was then expelled to his homeland, a changed but hardly defeated rebel. Once banned in the Irish Republic, Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a clear look into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland.

Under Fire


Henri Barbusse - 1916
    For the group of ordinary men in the French Sixth Battalion, thrown together from all over France and longing for home, war is simply a matter of survival, lightened only by the arrival of their rations or a glimpse of a pretty girl or a brief reprieve in the hospital. Reminiscent of classics like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Under Fire (originally published in French as La Feu) vividly evokes life in the trenches: the mud, stench, and monotony of waiting while constantly fearing for one's life in an infernal and seemingly eternal battlefield.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell


Bertrand Russell - 1951
    One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy and can lay claim to being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. This, his autobiography, is one of the most compelling and vivid ever written. This one-volume, compact paperback edition contains an introduction by the politician and scholar, Michael Foot, which explores the status of this classic nearly 30 years after the publication of the final volume.

In the Absence of Men


Philippe Besson - 2001
    It also dares to introduce an asthmatic middle-aged Proust into its masterfully manipulated plot and invents a series of deeply felt letters written by him to the novel's young protagonist, Vincent de l'Etoile. In the summer of 1916, the emotionally precocious Vincent, who is the same age as the century, awakens to the possibilities of both erotic and platonic love. In the course of one week-at literary salons, at the Ritz, in cork-lined rooms-Vincent launches an intense friendship with the celebrated Proust, while at his parents' house in Paris he embarks on a sensual journey with Arthur Vales, the soldier son of a family servant, on leave from the front. Unknowingly, Vincent is also beginning a passage into a manhood that will be haunted by the secret he uncovers behind the love he bears for a doomed French infantryman and a famous middle-aged Jewish writer.

Baise-Moi


Virginie Despentes - 1993
    Now the basis for a hit underground film which was banned in France, Baise-Moi is a searing story of two women on a rampage that is part Thelma and Louise, part Viking conquest. Manu and Nadine have had all they can take. Manu has been brutally raped, and determines it's not worth leaving anything precious lying vulnerable -- including her very self. She teams up with Nadine, a nihilist who watches pornography incessantly, and they enact their own version of les vols et les viols (rape and pillage) -- they lure men sexually, use them up, then rob and kill them. Drawing from the spiky cadences of the Sex Pistols and the murderous eroticism of Georges Bataille or Dennis Cooper, Baise-Moi is a shocking, accomplished, and truly unforgettable novel.

Cyrano de Bergerac


Edmond Rostand - 1897
    Set in Louis XIII's reign, it is the moving and exciting drama of one of the finest swordsmen in France, gallant soldier, brilliant wit, tragic poet-lover with the face of a clown. Rostand's extraordinary lyric powers gave birth to a universal hero--Cyrano De Bergerac--and ensured his own reputation as author of one of the best-loved plays in the literature of the stage.This translation, by the American poet Brian Hooker, is nearly as famous as the original play itself, and is generally considered to be one of the finest English verse translations ever written.

Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland


James St. James - 1999
    Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel. Now the book has been brought to the screen as Party Monster, with Macaulay Culkin playing killer Michael Alig and Seth Green as author/celebutante James St. James.

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man


Siegfried Sassoon - 1928
    Never out of print since its original publication in 1928, when it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Sassoon's reminiscences about childhood and the beginning of World War I are channeled through young George Sherston, whose life of local cricket tournaments and fox-hunts falls apart as war approaches and he joins up to fight. Sassoon's first novel, though rife with comic characters and a jaunty sense of storytelling, presents his own loss of innocence and the destruction of the country he knew and loved.Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man Siegfried Sassoon Early Days - The Flower Show Match - A Fresh Start - A Day With the Potford - At the Rectory - The Colonel's Cup - Denis Milden as Master -Migration of the Midlands - In the Army - At the front Originally published in 1928.

Virginia Woolf


Hermione Lee - 1996
    Subscribing to Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.  Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicide are brought into balance with the immensity of her literary achievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity and wit,  and her sanity and strength. It is not often that biography offers the satisfactions of great fiction--but this is clearly what Hermione Lee has achieved. Accessible, intelligent, and deeply pleasurable to read, her Virginia Woolf will undoubtedly take its place as the standard biography for years to come.

De Profundis and Other Writings


Oscar Wilde - 1897
    This collection contains, too, many examples of that humorous and epigrammatic genius which captured the London theatre and, by suddenly casting light from an unexpected angle, widened the bounds of truth.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady: A Memoir


Florence King - 1985
    Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.

Not Everybody Lives the Same Way


Jean-Paul Dubois
    He shares his cell with a much-feared Hells Angel called Patrick Horton, who is serving time for murder. Although it is unclear why Paul is in prison, his position as Patrick Horton’s cell mate is precarious; he has a knife that could kill him at any moment. An evaluator regularly assesses Paul’s behavior, but he shows no remorse for what he has done, and he will not be released until he does. So patiently, he must serve his time. Paul’s story is told in alternating chapters, moving between his present incarceration and his life leading to this point. We meet his parents—free-spirited Anna, who is disgraced when her art house cinema shows the scandalous Deep Throat, and Johannes, the pastor of the local church who runs away for a new life in Quebec. We meet his lover, a seaplane pilot called Winona, who takes him up into the cloudless sky away from his penny-pinching, arrogant boss Edouard Sedgwick and the ageing residents of the luxury apartment building he was so diligently the caretaker to for 20 years. Not Everybody Lives the Same Way is a powerfully original and unusual book, whose troubled protagonist leads us to question what it takes to lead a dignified life.

Micromegas


Voltaire - 1752
    On Saturn he befriends the local secretary of the Academy of Sciences—a comparative dwarf, being only two kilometers high—and the two decide to travel to earth together, where they will make startling discoveries about human nature.

Before Night Falls


Reinaldo Arenas - 1992
    Very quickly the Castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was finally imprisoned.