Last Words from Montmartre

Last Words from Montmartre
Author: Qiu Miaojin
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590177258

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When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre.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.

Love Letters from Montmartre

Love Letters from Montmartre
Author: Nicolas Barreau
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1950691586

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.

Dear Paris

Dear Paris
Author: Janice MacLeod
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2021-03-09
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1524870188

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

French Lessons

French Lessons
Author: Ellen Sussman
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2011-07-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 034552277X

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.

French Kiss

French Kiss
Author: Peter Turnley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2013
Genre: Photography, Artistic
ISBN: 9780615859989

All These Perfect Strangers

All These Perfect Strangers
Author: Aoife Clifford
Publisher: Alibi
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2016-07-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399593934

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

Notes of a Crocodile

Notes of a Crocodile
Author: Qiu Miaojin
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 168137076X

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.

In Montmartre

In Montmartre
Author: Sue Roe
Publisher: Penguin Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0143108123

Previously published: London: Fig Tree, [2014].

A Paris Year

A Paris Year
Author: Janice MacLeod
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2017-06-20
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1250130123

An illustrated love letter to the City of Light.

The Women of Pearl Island

The Women of Pearl Island
Author: Polly Crosby
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2021-12-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0369701119

"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.