Books: Books on France Reading Challenge 2013

Books on France Reading Challenge 2013 hosted @ Words and Peace

I wasn’t planning on signing up for a reading challenge or anything this 2013 but I noticed that I was reading a lot of books set in France lately and have a number of books on my to-read pile that’s set in France or written by a French author so I figured, why not? =) Basically this challenge includes any books set in France or contains any French themes; the full list can be found on the challenge main page.

LEVELS:

• LEVEL 1, “un peu” = 3 books (one per quarter for instance)
• LEVEL 2, “beaucoup”= 6 books
• LEVEL 3, “passionnément” = 12 books (one/month, for instance)
• LEVEL 4, “à la folie”= 52 books (one/week, for instance)

These are the books I’m planning to read that are on my to-read list at present. This list is, of course, subject to change:

• Denyse Beaulieu’s The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent (ARC; set in France, focuses on the perfume industry there) — review
• Alexandre Dumas’ La dame aux camelias (French author; set in France) — review
• Edward Rutherfurd’s Paris: the novel (ARC; set in France) — review
• Maurice Druon’s The Iron King, book 1 of the Accursed Kings (French author; set in France) — review
• Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (French author; set in France) — review
• Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (French author; set in France) — review
• Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame of Paris (French author; set in France) — review
• Honore de Balzac’s Pere Goriot (French author; set in France) — review
• Honore de Balzac’s Cousin Bette (French author; set in France) — review
• Benjamin Constable’s Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa (ARC; partly set in France) — review
• Paulita Kincer’s The Summer of France (set in France) — review
• Deanna Raybourn’s A Spear of Summer Grass (partly set in France) — review
• Alan Furst’s Mission to Paris (eGalley; set in France) — review
• Laurie R. King’s The Bones of Paris (eGalley/ARC; set in France) — review
• Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Watcher in the Shadows (set in France) — review
• Jojo Moyes’ The Girl You Left Behind (eGalley; partly set in France) — review
• Isabelle Lafleche’s J’adore Paris (set in Paris) — review
• Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-Ami (French author; set in France) — review
• Ayse Kulin’s Last Train to Istanbul (eGalley; partly set in France) — review
• Christopher Angel’s The Mona Lisa Speaks (set in France) — review
• M.K. Tod’s Unravelled (partly set in France) — review
• Susan Conley’s Paris Was the Place (set in France) — preview post
• P.S. Duffy’s The Cartographer of No-Man’s Land (party set in France) — review

And naturally most of the books on my list are classics xP We’ll see how this goes!

Edit: Just heard that re-reads are acceptable for this challenge. I’ve been hoping to re-read the following at some point so I’ll add them to the list as incentive ^_~

• Anna Gavalda’s Ensemble C’est Tout (Hunting and Gathering; French author; set in France) — commentary
• Sebastien Japrisot’s A Very Long Engagement (French author; set in France) — review
• Irene Nemirovsky’s All Our Worldly Goods (emigrated to France; set in France) — commentary