The Queen's Reading Room

The Red Notebook

By Antoine Laurain

A clever, funny novel… a masterpiece of Parisian perfection.
~ Her Majesty Queen Camilla
More about the Author

Share the book

Featured in: Season 2

Publish Date: 2015

One morning, on his way to work, bookseller Laurent Letellier notices an abandoned handbag on top of a bin. Compelled to return the bag to its rightful owner, he attempts to go to the police, but with no success. Upon opening the bag, in the hope of finding a phone number or address, he find himself enthralled by the handwritten thoughts scribbled on a red notebook, which point to a woman he would like to meet. But how to find someone in a city of millions?

Explore The Red Notebook

antoine-laurain-the-red-notebook-1

 

Antoine Laurain
The Red Notebook
antoine-laurain-cover

Watch

Antoine Laurain
On A Very Simple Story
hrh-on-antoine-laurain

Watch

HM Queen Camilla
On Antoine Laurain
antoine-laurain-quote

 

Antoine Laurain
On Writing The Red Notebook
antoine-laurain-emily-boyce-cover

Watch

Emily Boyce
On the Translating Process
copy-of-copy-of-antoine-laurain-cover

Watch

Emily Boyce
On the Advantages of Cotranslating
antoine-laurain-the-red-notebook-2

 

Antoine Laurain
The Red Notebook

Book Club Kit

Content needs adding in Book Club Kit block, go to edit book > book club kit block and update the content

Find out more

The Red Notebook

Antoine Laurain

Download

Author recommends

    The Short Stories Of Guy De Maupassant

    By Guy De Maupassant

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1880-1891
    A master of the short story, Maupassant wrote stories that are increadibly varied in theme and styles alike. His portraits of humanity are characterised by a focus on unflinchingly realistic descriptions of material desire as a driving force in the…
  • Guy de Maupassant, Collected Stories – Book Cover

    The Short Stories Of Guy De Maupassant

    by Guy De Maupassant

    Quick View

    • Swann In Love

    By Marcel Proust

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1913
    A narrative section of Swann’s Way, the first volume in Proust’s monumental novel In Search of Lost Time, Swann in Love is essentially self-contained and has for this reason often been published independently as a novella. In it, the narrator…
  • Marcel Proust, Swann in Love – Book Cover

    Swann In Love

    by Marcel Proust

    Quick View

    • Missing Person

    By Patrick Modiano

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1978 Awards: 1978 Prix Goncourt
    Paris, 1965. Guy Roland, a private detective who lost his memory ten years before, sets off to uncover the truth about his past. As he seeks to find out who he is, he gathers clues which will lead him to…
  • Patrick Modiano, Missing Person – Book Cover

    Missing Person

    by Patrick Modiano

    Quick View

    • Wind, Sand And Stars

    By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1939 Awards: 1939 Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française; 1939 National Book Award for Nonfiction
    Drawing from his own experience as a pilot, this memoir recounts de Saint-Exupery’s adventures flying the first mail routes across the Sahara and the Andes for the pioneering airline Latecoere, including his crash in the Libyan desert in 1936.
  • Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars – Book Cover

    Wind, Sand And Stars

    by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    Quick View

    • Comic Books

    By Jean-Jacques Sempé

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Sempé’s cartoons blend humour and poetry in whimsical portraits of countrysides and cityscapes, often seen from a high viewpoint, in which tiny figures move around in their neat moustaches and berets. Quintessentially French, his illustrations are timeless and exquisite.
  • Jean-Jacques Sempé, Monsieur Lambert – Book Cover

    Comic Books

    by Jean-Jacques Sempé

    Quick View

    • Peanuts

    By Charles M. Schulz

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1950-2000
    The Peanuts comic strip, originally titled Li’l Folks, first appeared in 1950, in seven newspapers across the United States. The strips feature a group of precocious small children and Snoopy the beagle, who interact with each other exchanging lines characterised…
  • Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts – Book Cover

    Peanuts

    by Charles M. Schulz

    Quick View

    • Wuthering Heights

    By Emily Brontë

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain & Victoria Hislop
    Publish Date: 1847
    A tale of passion, torment, and revenge, Wuthering Heights is set in the Yorkshire Moors, where a supernatural occurrence will prompt Heathcliff to tell the tragic story of his love for Catherine, her marriage to the well-meaning Edgar, and his…
  • Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights – Book Cover

    Wuthering Heights

    by Emily Brontë

    Quick View

    • Therapy

    By David Lodge

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1995
    Laurence ‘Tubby’ Passmore, a successful sitcom writer, wealthy, married, with a platonic mistress, is suddenly struck by a mid-life crisis, and no amount of cognitive therapy, physiotherapy, aromatherapy, and acupuncture seem to alleviate his angst nor his inexplicable knee pain.…
  • David Lodge, Therapy – Book Cover

    Therapy

    by David Lodge

    Quick View

    • The Uncommon Reader

    By Alan Bennett

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 2007
    When the Queen fortuitously finds out about the Westminster travelling library’s weekly visits to the palace, she begins withdrawing books, one after another, and her public duties begin to be affected as a result. Her entourage will be forced to…
  • Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader – Book Cover

    The Uncommon Reader

    by Alan Bennett

    Quick View

You might also like these books…

    Wide Sargasso Sea

    By Jean Rhys

    Recommended by: Maggie O’Farrell
    Publish Date: 1966
    The novel tells the story of Antoinette Mason, the woman known as Bertha in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, from her childhood to her arranged marriage to Mr. Rochester, an English gentleman who will turn out to be abusive and cruel.…
  • Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea – Book Cover

    Wide Sargasso Sea

    by Jean Rhys

    Quick View

    • The Pursuit Of Love

    By Nancy Mitford

    Recommended by: Susan Hill
    Publish Date: 1945
    Fanny, Linda, and her sisters are obsessed with love and marriage, and long to find the perfect man. Alas, this proves to be a much more arduous task than any of them had anticipated…
  • Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit Of Love – Book Cover

    The Pursuit Of Love

    by Nancy Mitford

    Quick View

    • The Summer Book

    By Tove Jansson

    Recommended by: Philip Pullman & Elizabeth Gilbert
    Publish Date: 1972
    An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter Sophia spend their summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. As they explore the nature on the island, they talk about their life and feelings, yet never mentioning the…
  • Tove Jannson, The Summer Book – Book Cover

    The Summer Book

    by Tove Jansson

    Quick View

    • Swann In Love

    By Marcel Proust

    Recommended by: Antoine Laurain
    Publish Date: 1913
    A narrative section of Swann’s Way, the first volume in Proust’s monumental novel In Search of Lost Time, Swann in Love is essentially self-contained and has for this reason often been published independently as a novella. In it, the narrator…
  • Marcel Proust, Swann in Love – Book Cover

    Swann In Love

    by Marcel Proust

    Quick View

    • The Island

    By Victoria Hislop

    Publish Date: 2005 Awards: 2007 Galaxy British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award
    The book follows Alexis on a journey to find out about her mother Sofia’s past in Crete. Determined to visit the island, she sets off to Greece. Here, she meets Fotini, a friend of her mother’s, who reveals to Alexis…
  • Victoria Hislop, The Island – Book Cover

    The Island

    by Victoria Hislop

    Quick View