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 lives of both rich and poor. In this unforgiving world, his characters are victims of a cruel fate against which they struggle in vain.
Recommendation
Recommendations from
Antoine Laurain
Antoine Laurain is a French novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and director. He started his career directing short films and writing screenplays. He later took a job at an antiques dealer in Paris, where he found inspiration for his first novel, The Portrait (2017). His novels have been translated into over twenty languages.
1
The Short Stories Of Guy De Maupassant
By Guy De Maupassant
"Maupassant's style is strikingly modern and unfussy. He can tell a life story in the space of a few pages." -
2
Swann In Love
By Marcel Proust
"The shortest and most accessible volume of 'In Search of Lost Time'." -
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 tells the story of the love affair between Charles Swann and Odette.
3
Missing Person
By Patrick Modiano
"Modiano has a way of creating a sense of mystery without filling his reader with unease. Reading him is like heading out for a pleasant stroll." -
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 his name, his friends, and their dangerous attempt to flee Paris after the Germans occupied the city.
4
Wind, Sand And Stars
By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"Saint-Exupéry draws on his experiences as an Aéropostale mail delivery pilot in these deeply human autobiographical tales. He goes beyond religion and philosophy to reach something almost mystical." -
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.
5
Comic Books
By Jean-Jacques Sempé
"Sempé is tender, melancholy and deeply human. You can spend several minutes looking at a Sempé illustration, as you would a painting in a gallery." -
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.
6
Peanuts
By Charles M. Schulz
"Because Schulz said more with a group of kids, a dog and a bird than many great philosophers." -
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 by a wry and dry sense of humour. The collected body of work of the Peanuts amounts to over 18,000 strips.
7
Wuthering Heights
By Emily Brontë
"For its landscape, the winds, the moors and the love it depicts. One of the masterworks of European Romanticism." -
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 return to exact revenge and be reunited with his beloved, albeit in death.
8
Therapy
By David Lodge
"For its British humour. And the remarkable portrait it paints of a man lost within his own life." -
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. As he becomes obsessed with the philosophy of Kierkegaard, he sets off on a quest for happiness.
9
The Uncommon Reader
By Alan Bennett
"For its excellent premise and its love of literature." -
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 conspire to draw this obsession to a close.
10
Fairy Tales
By Charles Perrault
Children's book.
A seminal figure, Charles Perrault is credited with giving classic status to the humble fairy tale. Our favourites, including Little Red Riding-Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, have been passed down from the seventeenth century in Perrault's version, and have continued to be enjoyed the same way they were at the court of Louis XIV.
11
Fairy Tales
By Ivan Bilibin
Children's book.
Russian folklore and folktales were collected by Alexander Afanasyev between 1855 and 1863 in a volume of nearly 600 fairy tales. Beautifully illustrated by Ivan Bilibin, the collection is modelled after Grimm's Fairy Tales and is an enchanting work.
12
No Kiss For Mother
By Tomi Ungerer
Children's book.
Piper Paw hates, hates, hates being kissed by his mother, Mrs Velvet Paw. One day, she does something unforgivable: she kisses Piper in front of his friends! Outraged and upset, he tells Mrs Paw he doesn't want any more kisses. In turn, Mrs Paw will have a surprise for her son which he couldn't expect...
13
Small Pig
By Arnold Lobel
Children's book.
After the farmer's wife cleans up all the mud, Small Pig runs away to find a better pigpen in the city, with soft mud for him to play. But what he thought was mud, turns out not to be mud at all...