Download or read book Love Letters from Montmartre written by Nicolas Barreau and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Nina George, Elena Ferrante, and Valentina Cebeni, a charming, uplifting novel about a man who sets out to fulfil his dead wife’s last wish. Julien Azouly, the famous French writer of beautiful romance novels, has stopped believing in love. When his beloved wife, Hélène, dies at the age of thirty-three, leaving him alone to raise their young son, Arthur, he is so devastated that he loses faith in the happier side of life—and along with that his ability to write. But Hélène was clever. Before her death, she made her husband promise to write her thirty-three letters, one for each year of her life. Six months after the funeral, Julien finds himself standing in the most famous cemetery in Paris, the painful first letter in his hand. Little does he know that something strange—and wonderful—is about to happen. An ode to love, Paris, and joie de vivre, Love Letters from Montmartre brings the reader down narrow streets, past the cozy red bistro on Rue Gabrielle, and all the way to Montmartre cemetery with its beautiful stone angels, where we will discover the truth we all hope to find: that love is real, that miracles can happen and that—most of all—it’s never too late to rediscover your dreams. Empathetic and wise, this is the deeply profound yet very human story of a man who finds love just when he thinks all is lost.

Download or read book Last Words from Montmartre written by Qiu Miaojin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NYRB Classics Original When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note. The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.

Download or read book Dear Paris written by Janice MacLeod and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eat, Pray, Love meets Claude Monet in this epistolary ode to the French capital from the New York Times–bestselling author of Paris Letters. What started as a whim in a Latin Quarter café blossomed into Janice MacLeod’s years-long endeavor to document and celebrate life in Paris, sending monthly snippets of her paintings and writings to the mailboxes of ardent followers around the world. Now, Dear Paris collects the entirety of the Paris Letters project: 140 illustrated messages discussing everything from macarons to Montmartre. For readers familiar with the city, Dear Paris is a rendezvous with their own memories, like the first time they walked along the Champs-Élysées or the best pain au chocolat they’ve ever tasted. But it’s about more than just a Paris frozen in nostalgia; the book paints the city as it is today, through elections, protests, and the World Cup—and through the people who call it home. Wistful, charming, surprising, and unfailingly optimistic, Dear Paris is a vicarious visit to one of the most iconic and beloved places in the world. Praise for Paris Letters “Janice MacLeod’s charming Paris Letters takes us on her starry-eyed discovery of Paris, the joys of learning the French language, a unique career in art and, best of all, the romance of a lifetime! C’est bon!” —Lynne Martin, author of Home Sweet Anywhere “Written as though to a best friend telling her story over lattes—or café crème. Relatable and inspiring . . . cleverly crafted with wit and unexpected wisdom.” —New York Journal of Books

Download or read book Notes of a Crocodile written by Qiu Miaojin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2018 LUCIEN STRYK ASIAN TRANSLATION PRIZE The English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award. An NYRB Classics Original Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan’s most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure. Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes a rich kid turned criminal and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover, as well as a bored, mischievous overachiever and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend. Illustrating a process of liberation from the strictures of gender through radical self-inquiry, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature.

Download or read book In Montmartre written by Sue Roe and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously published: London: Fig Tree, [2014].

Download or read book A Paris Year written by Janice MacLeod and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated love letter to the City of Light.

Download or read book All These Perfect Strangers written by Aoife Clifford and published by Alibi. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this intimate debut thriller in the vein of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, an award-winning mystery writer delves into the mind of a young woman who’s closer to murder than she’d like to admit. “This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” Within six months of her arrival at a university campus, three of Penelope Sheppard’s new friends are dead. And only Pen knows why. This isn’t Pen’s first encounter with violence, and she’s an expert at keeping secrets—especially ones as dark and dangerous as her own. Reputations have a way of haunting you—they’re easy to make, hard to shake. After Pen leaves her isolated hometown to escape the judgmental stares of her neighbors and carve out a new identity for herself, she’s free from the stigma of her past mistakes. At school, Pen is anonymous, surrounded by an eclectic collection of perfect strangers. But when someone begins to uncover the deadly secrets she thought she’d left behind, how far will Pen go to protect her new life? Six months later, Pen is back home, the victim of a violent trauma and a pariah once again. Now, reluctantly, she must recount her story from start to finish: to her shrink, to the police, even to herself. Because until she tells the whole truth, there will be no escaping the past. Praise for All These Perfect Strangers “Best book I’ve read this year. Fabulous writing.”—Fiona Barton, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow “All These Perfect Strangers gripped me and didn’t let go until the last page. Aiofe Clifford creates a disturbing but compelling cast of characters, leaving the reader constantly guessing what’s around the corner. It’s a cleverly woven plot, a wonderful, compelling read that lingers long after the book is closed.”—Jane Harper, award-winning author of The Dry “Unputdownable.”—Marie Claire (Australia) “A picture of death and betrayal across the sexually charged canvas of a first year on a university campus . . . tense, sparse . . . The gripping plot challenges and subverts the notion of innocence until the very last page.”—Monocle “A compulsively readable mystery set on a college campus, with one girl at the heart of it all, All These Perfect Strangers is a seething conflagration of lies and betrayal that explodes to a shocking conclusion. I couldn't put it down!”—Carla Buckley, author of The Good Goodbye “Aoife Clifford has given us one terrific yarn. All These Perfect Strangers is tender and cruel, naïve and complex, hopeful and crushing. In other words, real to the broken and bloody bone. A phenomenal debut novel that will make you forget you have other things to do. Read this book and spend the next week captivated by our hero, Pen Sheppard.”–T. E. Woods, author of the Justice series “Intrigue, betrayal and murder . . . deliciously dark.”–T.R. Richmond, author of What She Left “Aoife Clifford’s debut novel twists and turns and twists again. All These Perfect Strangers is really a perfect blend of storytelling and psychological suspense. I can’t wait to see what Clifford does next.”—Nichole Christoff, author of The Kill List

Download or read book French Kiss written by Peter Turnley and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Progress of Love written by Alice Munro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-12-21 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven stunning stories that explore the most intimate and transforming moments of existence, from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro, “one of the foremost practitioners of the short story” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). “Throughout this remarkable collection moments of insight flash from the pages like lightning, not necessarily providing answers—more like showing the way to new questions.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer A divorced woman returns to her childhood home where she confronts the memory of her parents’ confounding yet deep bond. The accidental near-drowning of a child exposes to the shaken mother the fragility between children and parents. A young man, remembering a terrifying childhood incident, wrestles with the responsibility he has always felt for his hapless younger brother. A man brings his lover on a visit to his ex-wife, only to feel unexpectedly closer to his estranged partner. In these and other stories, Alice Munro proves once again a sensitive and compassionate chronicler of our times. Drawing us into the most intimate corners of ordinary lives, she reveals much about ourselves, our choices, and our experiences of love.

Download or read book Paris Letters written by Janice MacLeod and published by Macmillan Publishers Aus.. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do you do when your great life-plan works out, and you're still unhappy? Successful, but on the verge of burnout, Janice MacLeod saved enough money to buy herself two years of freedom in Europe. Days into her stop in Paris, she met Christophe, and her fate was sealed. Forced to find a way to fund her expat future, Janice created a painted letter subscription service, sending out thousands of letters to people who are hungry to receive something beautiful. Paris Letters is the inspiring story of a woman who dared to discover a life she could love.

Download or read book Love in the Time of Cholera Illustrated Edition written by Gabriel García Márquez and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully packaged edition of one of García Márquez's most beloved novels, with never-before-seen color illustrations by the Chilean artist Luisa Rivera and an interior design created by the author's son, Gonzalo García Barcha. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

Download or read book The Women of Pearl Island written by Polly Crosby and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A luminous and beautiful novel that gently lures the reader into a captivating story with a mystery at its heart." – Jennifer Saint, bestselling author of Ariadne Set on a secluded island off the British coast, The Women of Pearl Island is a moving and evocative story of family secrets, natural wonders and a mystery spanning decades. When Tartelin answers an ad for a personal assistant, she doesn't know what to expect from her new employer, Marianne, an eccentric elderly woman. Marianne lives on a remote island that her family has owned for generations, and for decades her only companions have been butterflies and tightly held memories of her family. But there are some memories Marianne would rather forget, such as when the island was commandeered by the British government during WWII. Now, if Marianne can trust Tartelin with her family's story, she might finally be able to face the long-buried secrets of her past that have kept her isolated for far too long.

Download or read book The Man who Walked Through Walls written by Marcel Ayme and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The excellent Monsieur Dutilleul has always been able to pass through walls, but has never seen the point of using his gift, given the general availability of doors. One day, however, his tyrannical boss drives him to desperate, creative measures — he develops a taste for intramural travel and becomes something of a super-villain. How will the unassuming clerk adjust to a glamorous life of crime? Aymé’s genius lies in imagining the practical unfolding of bizarre and difficult situations. In each story, anarchic comedy is arrested by moments of pathos, only to descend into anarchy and hilarity once more ...

Download or read book French Lessons written by Ellen Sussman and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways. Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world. As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris’s grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.

Download or read book Letters to a Young Woman written by Jana Rose and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 2020, Jana Marie Rose (aka, MotherJana) traveled to Paris to write a book of letters to a young woman about the future of women in the 21st century. While sharing her own story of pain and loss, she encourages young women to find strength in being unique individuals, in meditation, in traveling alone, and releasing the shame and trauma of patriarchal religion. They can do this, she advises, with the aid of the yoga guru SexyJesus. She also shares her biggest dream and the stories of friends she makes in Paris.

Download or read book Charlotte Pass written by Lee Christine and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A shocking discovery deep in the Snowy Mountains. A killer who will do anything to keep secrets buried. 'Hums with tension and long-held secrets... you won't read better.' Fleur McDonald, bestselling author of Starting From Now When ski patroller Vanessa Bell discovers human bones high on Mount Stillwell at Charlotte Pass ski resort, Detective Sergeant Pierce Ryder of the Sydney Homicide Squad is called in to lead the investigative team. Arriving in the isolated, snowed-in village with Winterfest celebrations underway, Ryder soon determines that the bones are those of Celia Delaney, a young woman who disappeared from the ski resort in 1964 during the biggest winter storm in Australian alpine history. When a second murder takes place, Ryder suspects that the deaths are related, and that the person responsible is still in the village. Amid the escalating tension, Ryder is desperate to make an arrest before the stakes rise even higher. Set within the stunning Snowy Mountains, this intriguing mystery uncovers deadly, long-buried secrets in the valleys and mountains of this iconic area.

Download or read book The Velvet Hours written by Alyson Richman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the international bestselling author of The Lost Wife and The Garden of Letters, comes a story—inspired by true events—of two women pursuing freedom and independence in Paris during WWII. As Paris teeters on the edge of the German occupation, a young French woman closes the door to her late grandmother’s treasure-filled apartment, unsure if she’ll ever return. An elusive courtesan, Marthe de Florian cultivated a life of art and beauty, casting out all recollections of her impoverished childhood in the dark alleys of Montmartre. With Europe on the brink of war, she shares her story with her granddaughter Solange Beaugiron, using her prized possessions to reveal her innermost secrets. Most striking of all are a beautiful string of pearls and a magnificent portrait of Marthe painted by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini. As Marthe’s tale unfolds, like velvet itself, stitched with its own shadow and light, it helps to guide Solange on her own path. Inspired by the true account of an abandoned Parisian apartment, Alyson Richman brings to life Solange, the young woman forced to leave her fabled grandmother’s legacy behind to save all that she loved.