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Whether it’s Georges Simenon’s Maigret taking us around France as he solves a new crime (and often Belgium and other parts of the world as well) or Elizabeth David’s food and travel memoirs sharing her driving (and dining) tours around the French countryside, getting to know France through the books we read gives us the tickets to travel whenever the mood strikes us.
In my pile of books that I am reading, there is usually at least one that is set in France in some way, whether a piece of fiction or a look back through history or a travel memoir. It is as though even when I cannot be in France, I want to be in contact with it in some way. And reading gives me that freedom.
In today’s post, as we begin TSLL’s 11th Annual French Week, and with our theme of traveling around France beyond Paris, I thought that books would be our gateway into the travel excursion to a country and culture so many of us hold dear.
Below is a list, and it is absolutely one I will be adding to (and please do share titles that you recommend), that takes the reader not only through a worthwhile plot if it is fiction, but also introduces us to sites, places, and destinations depicted so invitingly we will want to visit someday in person on our own. Or is written in such an engaging way, sharing the history of a time and place in France, that our appreciation of the culture is deepened, further strengthening our endearment with the culture. Case in point, the series that tops the list is what inspired me to go visit Brittany and specific places included in the books. Books really can be a most wonderful travel guide. Let’s take a look and start traveling around France!
Mystery Series
1. Jean-Luc Bannalac’s Brittany Mystery series
Currently, there are eleven books in the series with the twelfth set to be published this coming spring. The lead detective, Commissaire Georges Dupin, may be Parisian born, but he is most at home in Brittany. In each book, Bannalec introduces specific locations in Brittany, along with the Celtic history paired with the Breton language, and don’t forget the food. Dupin loves his food, so anytime he is able to sit down for lunch, breakfast or a late dinner after working on a case, the food is described in wonderfully delicious detail.
2. M.L. Longworth’s Provençal mystery series
Set in Aix-en-Provence, M.L. (Mary Lou) Longworth is a favorite mystery author of mine and of many TSLL readers. Her 10-book series involves chief magistrate Antoine Verlaque and professor Marine Bonnet. The series was even adapted for television sharing three of the mysteries in Murder in Provence, found on BritBox, starring Roger Allam and Nancy Carroll.
Discover Aix through the characters, and enjoy the food both Marine and Antoine cook for each other as they navigate their the romantic tension in each book while also trying to solve a mystery. You can listen to my two interviews with ML Longworth here, and in both, while talking about her latest book, we also talk about food and traveling around the South of France. In fact, below is the post of the tour she gave me when I visited the city back in 2018.
3. Martin Walker’s Detective Bruno series
Set in a small village in the southwest of France in the Perigord region, Benoît Courrèges, also known as Bruno, a former soldier wounded while serving in UN peacekeepers, now chief of police, is solving crimes and eating very well while he does. Or should I say enjoying cooking and eating very well. In fact, a cookbook came out in 2023, inspired by the series, written by both Martin Walker and his wife, Julia Watson. With 20 books now in the series, Walker continues to give us an in-person tour by Bruno, revealing the history, terrain, and culture of this part of the country.
The consistency of Bruno’s character is what I have found endearing in the couple of books I have read in the series so far. He detests carrying a gun, loves his basset hound and his horse, and while hopeless with women, is drawn to the strong, fiercely independent type.
Inspector Jules Maigret heads up the 75 mysteries created by Belgian author Georges Simenon. And with all of the different locales Simenon takes us with each case, we are offered a variety of insight in different corners of France. The restaurants or specific places are less the focus and more general and often fictionalized, but it is the towns, canals, cities and way of life that Simenon portrays so well, along with the consistent, steadiness of Maigret.
Having read and listened to a few of the many mysteries, I have come to like the main character and his calm nature, caring approach and observant eye. Adapted for television many times over the years, the latest rendition of Maigret (airing on PBS) has retired the pipe-smoking ways, but still pays homage to this identifying characteristic of the famed character.
5. Jean-Pierre Alaux’s The Winemaker Detective series
There are 14 books in the series, and each are available in English. Travel all over France to various vineyards and even to cognac estates, learn about the varietals of wine and wine making process all the while solving a crime with master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile. The books pair food and wine, so along with the excursions to all corners of France, your appetite will be whetted as well.
6. Alexander Campion’s Capucine Culinary Mystery series
A series of five books, Commissaire Capucine Le Tellier, while set in Paris primarily, does travel outside of the city to try to take a holiday, but crime seems to follow him there as well.
7. Greg Mosse’s The French Village mystery series
Zoe Pascal, a British woman who has moved to a small village in the south of France and opens a bookshop, is the amateur detective leading the way in so far four books with a fifth on the way.
Engaging Books of French History
8. Judgment of Paris: Judgment of Paris by George M. Taber
Released in 2006 and inspiring the 2008 film Bottle Shock (starring Alan Rickman, Chris Pine and Bill Pullman), Judgment of Paris is written by the only reporter who was at the historic tasting in 1976, George M. Taber.
9. En Route: A Journey Through France in the Company of Great Writers by Peter Fiennes
Published just last month, if you are intrigued by the lives of French writers such as Guy de Maupassant, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, George Sand, Colette, John Berger, Katherine Mansfield, François Mauriac and even American writer living in France for much of her life Edith Wharton, this is book will give you the author’s first-hand account of seeing the places where each writer visited, lived and worked.
10. Émile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies Paradise)
Currently reading this book now, I am quite enjoying it as you get an insider’s look into the workings behind the scenes, the psychology that goes into marketing and planning, as well as the lives the workers lived. While yes, a novel, Zola’s book is a commentary on what he observed in society and wanted us to become aware of as to either not fall prey or to be conscious of the effects of our involvement.
Originally published in 1883, this novel takes us back to 1860s in Paris when department stores were just beginning to enter the market place, and drawing throngs of women shoppers. Zola takes us inside the department store and shares the secrets of the department store owners and managers to discover their approaches to capturing the attention and money of the shoppers.
11. Edward Rutherford’s Paris: A Novel
A historical novel, and an in-depth (read – thick book) telling of Paris’ history told through the people from all walks of life and as they “come of age, seek their fortunes, and fall in and out of love.” I read this book back in 2013 when it was originally released and thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters may be fictionalized, but the historical events they live through are not, and to get to know Paris over the centuries and how it came to be what it is is a fascinating history worth knowing before you head there on your next trip.
12. Claudine Lesage’s Edith Wharton in France biography
American author Edith Wharton lived the last 35 years of her life in France, and while there are many biographies about Wharton, this most recent one published in 2018 is written by a French scholar who focuses specifically on those years between 1907-1937 (the year of her death). With Lesage’s “innate knowledge of French culture, [she] uses previously unknown or untranslated sources to provide a unique look into French society and Wharton’s place within it.”
I recently ordered this book, and while it is taking some time to arrive, I look forward to reading it.
Explore more French focused books in the posts below
Explore all of the Posts shared during this year’s French Week
