An aunt, a distant cousin or a sister… There is always a great writer in the family! And since Christmas is fast approaching, we have selected for you writings imbued with poetry, humor, fantasy, love... It's up to you to choose from this selection of books for Christmas!
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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 !
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Perfume lovers dictionary, Elisabeth de Feydeau, Plon editions
“Perfume makes silence speak. He inhabits absence. It also tells the story of the person who conveys it. The historian Elizabeth de Feydeau takes us in the wake of the greatest fragrances, from the line of the bottle to the design of the label down to the smallest of the components that ensure their success and their durability. We will discover their Story, the workshop of the perfumer and the great creators. The importance also of scents in literature with Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust or Émile Zola among others. A necessarily intoxicating dictionary!
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Messages carried by the clouds, Jean d'Ormesson, Robert Laffont editions, Books collection
Prefaced by Jean-Luc Barré, Messages carried by the clouds brings together a few epistolary exchanges sometimes tinged with humor between the academician and his writer friends, including Claude Lévi-Strauss, François Mauriac or François Nourissier. But also with the presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. Eclectic friendships whose convictions the writer did not always share but which literature brought together because, as he said, “friendships that begin with books are perhaps the strongest”. Unavoidable !
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What to love to live, Fatou Diome, Albin Michel editions
In this collection of stories Fatou Diome scrutinizes the hearts of a host of characters often anchored in their loneliness. It is clear that only love will be able to save them because it "feeds our souls", specifies the author. Once again the reader falls under the charm of the poetic style of the Franco-Senegalese writer.
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Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, drawings by Yves Saint Laurent
Flaubert's work illustrated by Yves Saint Laurent presents the couturier's very first sketches. As a teenager fascinated by the character of Emma, he produced 14 drawings in black ink and gouache inspired by the novel. These hitherto unpublished illustrations in their entirety come from the collection Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint-Laurent. A book that will delight fans of the creator and the great classics.
I (RE)DISCOVER THIS CULT AUTHOR
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The happy people of the world, Stephanie des Horts, Albin Michel editions
We were eagerly awaiting the release of the new book by Stephanie des Horts. The novelist- queen of extraordinary destinies – takes us here in the wake of the flamboyant couple formed by Sara and Gerald Murphy in the heart of Crazy years. They are American. One is beautiful and bright, the other is a renowned painter. Their friends are part of the artistic circle whose Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald among others. Fleeing prohibition, they settle on the Riviera where they organize sumptuous parties. However, a mystery hovers over the much adored couple... A fascinating novel written by a passionate person!
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Happy Days, Adélaïde de Clermont Tonnerre, Grasset editions
Memories jostle for Oscar Vian, the narrator, when he learns that his mother, Laure Brankovic is condemned. Laure and her husband, Edouard Vian formed for thirty years the most charismatic couple of European cinema. She is a screenwriter. He is a director. They rubbed shoulders with the greatest actors, traveled around the world, experienced a host of anecdotes, had a child. Then they separated. His sick mother, Oscar will try to reunite his parents to ward off fate, find happy days. Laure's destiny could be changed forever. The sensitive pen of Adélaïde de Clermont Tonnerre portrays endearing characters who transport us behind the scenes of the cinema from Paris to New York. From Cannes to Hollywood. A captivating moment of escape!
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Indo-China, comics, Gaet's – Sébastien Bataille, Petit à Petit editions
The comic returns to the forty-year career of the mythical group who gave a test concert on May 29, bringing together 5000 volunteers at the Accor Hotel Arena in Paris. The authors present us with a well-documented album starting with the childhood of the Sirkis brothers ; goes back to the story ofIndo-China and the origin of each of his songs. A rock'n'roll group that arouses admiration by changing fashions without taking a wrinkle!
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The beauty of living twice, Sharon Stone, Robert Laffont editions
The actress with the fatal beauty of the ardent Basic Instinct, a film that has become a cult film, looks back with humility on its journey in a book of memories. Still as dazzling at 63, Sharon Stone recounts her childhood in Pennsylvania, her beginnings as a model and then as an actress. She reveals the cerebral hemorrhage which almost cost her her life and her career in 2001. Miraculously, Sharon Stone explains her long reconstruction, the strength drawn from her children; recounts his humanitarian commitment. Enough to love life twice as hard!
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The tribulations of a Frenchman in France, Philibert Humm, Editions du Rocher
The day after the first confinement, the journalist Philibert Humm decides to undertake a world tour of France, so varied in its landscapes. Don't we say that Coutances looks like Toledo? The universe could therefore be found in the least of our villages. Exhilarating! Equipped with a Volkswagen combi the author criss-crosses the country; observe, listen, collect a wealth of information in cafes and sometimes anecdotes about a city, a village, their origins, their similarities with other countries. From this journey was born a work tinged with humor in which History is also invited among these books for Christmas 2022.
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Serge Gainsbourg, intimate address, Marie David, Plon editions
Mary David recounts Gainsbourg through the intimacy of his home at 5 bis, rue de Verneuil in Paris. A place full of memories of the great artist; objects he loved. A house rich in years of happiness with Jane Birkin, Charlotte and Kate. It is here, too, that he composed his most beautiful melodies until his death in 1991. An original approach to the life of the musician to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.
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“A castle for Hollywood” by Olivier Minne, published by Séguier
Olivier Minne invites us to push the door of the Castle of Sunset Boulevard, a baroque hotel in the heart of Los Angeles. Its fresco inhabited by whimsical and glamorous characters, makes us live in the heart of the myth embodied by Hollywood.
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“La scandaleuse, the novel by Louise Labé” by Michel Peyramaure, published by Calmann-Lévy
A fictionalized biography of the greatest poetess of the Renaissance who, through her verses, dared to express her desires as a libertine woman. Brave !
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“Haute couture” by Florence Delay, published by Gallimard
Associate a dress with a life, you had to think about it. This is the challenge that Florence Delay set herself by investigating the works of the painter Zurbaran and his models. Exciting !
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"My literary Paris" by François Busnel, published by Flammarion
This is the chic and confidential Paris of the journalist. His favorite addresses of cafés, restaurants, unusual bookshops and authors' houses... A little nugget for those who love Paris and literary strolls in the capital.
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“A French novel” by Frédéric Beigbeder, published by Grasset
A great novel where childhood memories and the sentimental destinies of the writer's family mingle... Tender and humorous, we discover an almost wise Beigbeder.
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“Sentimental Philosophy” by Frédéric Schiffter, published by Flammarion
The author brings together in this work the philosophers dear to his heart and quotes “Love is the most exquisite form of the discomfort of living”. In my opinion the most beautiful definition of feelings!
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"Tales of the Alhambra" by Washington Irving, Libretto editions
A magnificent dreamlike journey to the times of the Moors of Andalusia. Enchanting!
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"California-style happiness" by Laure Gontier, published by Pocket
Getaway to the land of surfers and the eternal sun with its well-being recipes to surround yourself with good vibes. Oxygenating! A true lifestyle of happiness among these books for Christmas 2022.
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"The Man Who Laughs" by Victor Hugo, published by Le Livre de Poche
This abundant book brings together all genres through the tragic destiny of a young lord: adventure, history, suspense, philosophy and poetry. If there was only one left, that would be it.
I (RE)DISCOVER THIS GREAT CLASSIC
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"The Thief of Eternity" by Alexandra Lapierre, published by Pocket
The fabulous epic across the world of William Petty in search of masterpieces for the English court in the XNUMXth century. Fascinating and addicting!
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Written by Marie-Laure Vallée from the blog Literature and Company. Instagram: livrissime_m.laure
