50 Best Books selected by Online College

Great selection of books I just received from Accredited Online College...Here is an extract of the books about Food (of course), but also some good Classics to read and also some books written by Americans leaving in France just in case you are thinking to move there...

For the whole selection, go to Accredited Online College blog

" French language and culture is just about everywhere, from the Monet hanging in the dentist’s waiting room to the use of common words like cafe, foyer, and a la mode. Despite the jokes many Americans make about the French, the reality is that whether you’re aware of it or not, they are very much a part of our everyday lives. Those obsessed with everything Gallic are acutely familiar with this fact, and even with all the Frenchness that surrounds us, they still seek out movies, art and, of course, books to help them to immerse themselves in French culture. Whether you’re one of these avowed Francophiles looking for a great read or a college student studying the language and hoping to learn a bit more about France and its peoples, these books offer up a healthy helping of history, culture, and fiction. A word of warning, however. These reads may make you want to drop everything, hop on a plane, and start living out your French fantasies in real life.

FOOD

The French are known worldwide for their strong gastronomic skills, and you can get your taste buds watering with these food-centric reads.

1. French Food: On the Table, On the Page, and in French Culture by Lawrence Schehr and Allen Weiss: Serious foodies will love digging into this book to learn about the rich history of the French culinary scene.
2. A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan: Georgeanne Brennan moved to Provence in 1970 to find a simple life making goat cheese. In this book, you’ll get a chance to see part of her transformation from a simple goat herder to an award-winning cookbook author and learn a bit about Provencal culture in the process.
3. Chocolat by Joanne Harris: This sexy book, perhaps better known for the film adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, explores the pleasures food can offer – even in a place where this kind of indulgence is seen as sinful.
4. The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: A must-read for any foodie or gourmand, Brillat-Savarin’s treatise has created one of the most brilliant examinations of the process of cooking, eating, and truly enjoying food ever written.
5. On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town by Susan Herrmann Loomis: Leaving home to attend a French cooking school, Loomis fell in love with the country. In this book, you’ll not only read about her initial forays into French life, but her return years later with husband and child in tow – and get a few amazing recipes to boot.
6. French Lessons by Peter Mayle: While most of his work focuses on Provence, this book takes Mayle’s writing to new destinations within France, celebrating all things related to French gastronomy.
7. The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Cultureby Rebecca L. Spang: It is strange to think that restaurants were ever actually invented, but this book will tell you the tale and aptly demonstrates France’s role in it all.
8. From Here, You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant by Michael S. Sanders: Michael Sanders spent a year with his family living in southern France, and in this book documents what he sees as a quickly disappearing way of life, filled with tales of food, cooking, and rural living.
9. My Life in France by Julia Child: Known for bringing French cooking into the American home, Child learned a thing or two while studying and living in France with her husband – lessons which she happily shares here.
10. A Goose In Toulouse: and Other Culinary Adventures in France by Mort Rosenblum: Become an armchair traveler with this book, which will let readers escape on a culinary journey throughout France’s diverse regions.

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FICTION

Numerous novels, including a large number of classics, have been set in France – and many more come from famous French authors. Here, you’ll find a good mix of the two, allowing you to indulge in French culture.

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: While it is a fictional tale, this classic novel is an excellent place to start learning about the French Revolution, with intrigue, romance, and drama aplenty.
2. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky: A sad relic from WWII, this novel was completed mere weeks before Nemirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz. Uncompleted, yet still moving, readers will get insights into the lives of ordinary Parisians as they are affected in different ways by the horrors of WWII.
3. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes: Fans of Flaubert should flock to this novel, full of details about his life and ideas about writing.
4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo: This tragic novel is one of Hugo’s greatest and the descriptions of life in 15th century Paris will be enthralling for any Francophile.
5. The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century by Stendhal: A jab at the materialistic culture of France under Bourbon rule, this book was little appreciated in its day, but today is regarded as one of the world’s great novels.
6. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas: Readers will be drawn into Dumas’ tale of revenge and romance as it plays out in the post-Napoleonic years in France.
7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: Perhaps one of the most unlikable characters ever created in literature, Emma Bovary is bored by her middle class life and her doting husband and daughter, seeking out affairs and eventually making an unconscionable decision. While readers might not like Bovary, the book is a masterpiece and offers great insight to French life and culture in the 1800′s.
8. Candide by Voltaire: While most political satire loses its bite after only a few years, Voltaire proves his worth by creating this work that still resonates with audiences today. Mocking the politics and philosophy of mid-1700′s France, the book is full of folly and a fair share of misery for its main character, Candide, as he struggles to reunite with his long-lost love.
9. The Stranger by Albert Camus: The brainchild of a number of French philosophers, existentialism made a huge impact on thought and philosophy in its time and is still talked about a great deal today. Camus masterfully applies the central principles of the philosophy in this novel, a classic every Francophile should read.
10. Nana by Emile Zola: A bit risque when it was released in 1880, this novel follows the determined Nana as she rises from poverty to the height of Parisian society, often through the use of her body as much as her mind.
11. One Hundred Great French Books: From the Middle Ages to the Presentby Lance Donaldson-Evans: If you’re still hungering for more French literature, this book will direct you to the best reads that have ever come out of France.

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EX-PATS

These books come from those who have left their home countries and decided to call France home, whether for a lifetime or just a few years.

1. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle: Mayle abandoned his native England to take up residence in a small home in Provence. In this book, the first in a series, Mayle shares the many wonderful and not so wonderful things that happen during their first year in their adopted home.
2. My French Life by Vicki Archer: Buying a 17th century home in France with her husband and children, Archer describes her life in France, from tending the olive groves to taking in a delicious meal, in this book.
3. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: Life in Paris in the 1920s was exciting for Hemingway and his wife, hobnobbing with big names like Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Stein. This classic novel perfectly captures the city in this idyllic pre-war period.
4. Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner: In this collection of essays from theNew Yorker, Flanner brings to life Paris in the years leading up to WWII.
5. A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke: Acting through his alter ego Paul West in this fictionalized account of his time in Paris, Stephen Clarke’s work takes an entertaining look at how one Brit learns to adapt to life in France.
6. The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Love & Olive Oil in the South of France by Carol Drinkwater: Drinkwater fulfills a lifelong dream of owning a home in the French countryside in this novel. Of course, it wouldn’t be interesting if it were all rosy from the get-go, and in the book you’ll see this Brit struggle with a rickety old house, French law, and the natural elements.