With more than 500 titles, the literary season arouses as every year a lot of frenzy. Our choice - not exhaustive ! – focused on Quentin Tarantino's jubilant first novel; on writings imbued with poetry, humor, fantasy and love always... Good readings!
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Once upon a time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino, Fayard editions
Although inspired by Once upon a time…in Hollywood " this first book by director Quentin Tarantino is a novel in its own right.
Los Angeles 1969. We find the actor Rick Dalton in search of roles and his sidekick Cliff Booth, ex-stuntman turned cinephile. Both are neighbors of the couple Polanski - Sharon Tate. Fortunately, the magic of fiction will imagine for the actress a very different destiny in reality. Quentin Tarantino following the same plot as his Oscar-winning film Once upon a time…in Hollywood develops other extravagant scenes and characters in the book; alludes to French cinema and is fierce with Hollywood. All the love of the 7th art at the heart of a literary creation: delightful!
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My master and my victor, François-Henri Désérable, Gallimard editions
Vasco is dead. Murder or suicide? On his body was found a pistol and a notebook of poems entitled My master and my conqueror. Perhaps a romance that turned to drama. Surely, according to the narrator… Vasco wrote it, Tina is the key to the enigma. By paralleling the plot the passion between the poets Verlaine and Rimbaud the writer unveils a story where police investigation, poetry, exacerbated feelings mingle, against a backdrop of black humor. Brilliant!
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The Eternal Bridegroom, Agnès Desarthe, editions of the Olivier
What feeds an existence? For the author Agnès Desarthe, of a promise of love between two children to the sound of classical music. They are forever linked. Their paths will cross several times. As in any melody, each reunion reminds the heroine of the very first one. These are also the concerns of a teenager passionate about musicology until her exhilarating encounter with Yves. Here, drama and small pleasures construct the scenario of a life as the news of an era unfolds.
From childhood to adulthood, from despair to bewilderment, Agnes Desarthe draws a work with wildly lively paintings.
The Eternal Bridegroom is in the running for the Renaudot and the Goncourt price.
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Mamba Point Blues, Christophe Naigeon, Les Presses de la Cité publisher
1918. Jules, a percussionist from Gorée, is engaged on the front lines of a France he knows only through literature. Placed on the front line, he only thinks of returning home. But fate decided otherwise... After the trenches, the young man left for America with his brothers in arms, saw the exuberance of the Roaring Twenties on a tour with his orchestra and then at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem. He crosses Josephine Baker which takes him to Paris. There, Jules seals a friendship with the writer Graham Greene, which leads him to the cradle of his origins: Liberia.
1918 to 1980. From Alsace to New York that never sleeps. From Paris to Monrovia, the Franco-Senegalese follows a fascinating route according to the upheavals of History and racial segregation. All punctuated by jazz. Exciting !
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The Great Valley, Edouard Bureau, Le Cherche Midi editions
The small village of Cent-Maisons is buzzing with the arrival of the Grand Batave. He promised that there would be no more torrential rains or niello which destroys the wheat because he knows how to upset nature. In the valley, many are ready to believe it except the Arno and Belej shepherds who went on transhumance with their herd. Sweet dreamers, they like to linger to scan the sky while ecstatic in front of the canopy. Yet the clouds of industrialization will come to darken this perfect spectacle. Can they save the Great Valley from this man-made disaster?
A star-studded fable, this highly lyrical novel brings the reader face to face with the worst that excessive urbanization can do to nature. Wonderful !
Written by Marie-Laure Vallée from the blog Literature and Company. Instagram: livrissime_m.laure
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