Love Arthur Young's Travels in France? Readers share 100 books like Arthur Young's Travels in France...

By Arthur Young ,

Here are 100 books that Arthur Young's Travels in France fans have personally recommended if you like Arthur Young's Travels in France. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry

Stephen Clarke Author Of The Spy Who Inspired Me

From my list on why the French deny their own history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have lived almost all my adult life in France, and have spent that whole time wondering what makes the French so French. One of the answers is their attitude to their own history. The French have got a lot of upheaval to process: at least five revolutions since 1789, and two World Wars fought on their soil, including a Nazi occupation that they still haven’t digested. I didn’t start writing about the French until I’d been living in France for about 10 years – I didn’t want to write like a tourist, and it took me that long to unweave the first strands of their DNA. I’ve never stopped writing about them since, half a dozen Merde novels and as many non-fiction books later.

Stephen's book list on why the French deny their own history

Stephen Clarke Why Stephen loves this book

For me, the Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most glorious works in the whole of Western art. Seventy metres of embroidery (not actual tapestry) describing the conquest of Britain by William and co. Every time I go to see it, it takes my breath away. But as I began to read around the subject for the opening chapter of my book 1000 Years of Annoying the French, I started to doubt the “official” version of the story told by the museum’s audio guide, which is basically a justification of the Norman duke’s claim to the throne of England. Andrew Bridgeford’s book examines both the story being told in the main narrative of the tapestry, as well as the hidden undercurrent of anti-William propaganda there. It turns out that, contrary to French legend, this was not just a visual record of the Conquest commissioned by William and executed by his…

By Andrew Bridgeford ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked 1066 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A brilliant new reading of the Bayeux Tapestry that radically alters our understanding of the events of 1066 and reveals the astonishing story of the survival of early medieval Europe's greatest treasure.

The Bayeux Tapestry was embroidered (it's not really a tapestry) in the late eleventh century. As an artefact, it is priceless, incomparable - nothing of it's delicacy and texture, let alone wit, survives from the period. As a pictorial story it is delightful: the first feature-length cartoon. As history it is essential: it represents the moment of Britain's last conquest by a foreign army and celebrates the Norman…


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Book cover of The Beatles and the 1960s: Reception, Revolution, and Social Change

The Beatles and the 1960s by Kenneth L. Campbell,

The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles and the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses The…

Book cover of The Belly of Paris

Crystal King Author Of Feast of Sorrow: A Novel of Ancient Rome

From my list on novels about food.

Why am I passionate about this?

Crystal King is the author of The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was a Must-Read for the MassBook Awards. She is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at GrubStreet, Harvard Extension School, and Boston University, among others. She resides in Boston.

Crystal's book list on novels about food

Crystal King Why Crystal loves this book

In the third novel of Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, a man named Florent, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, escapes to Paris and becomes a fish inspector at the Les Halles market. Food and politics collide in the heart of the market, giving the reader some of the most vivid and delicious descriptions you’ll ever find on the page.

By Emile Zola , Brian Nelson ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Belly of Paris as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Respectable people... What bastards!'

Unjustly deported to Devil's Island following Louis-Napoleon's coup-d'etat in December 1851, Florent Quenu escapes and returns to Paris. He finds the city changed beyond recognition. The old Marche des Innocents has been knocked down as part of Haussmann's grand programme of urban reconstruction to make way for Les Halles, the spectacular new food markets. Disgusted by a bourgeois society whose devotion to food is inseparable from its devotion to the Government, Florent
attempts an insurrection. Les Halles, apocalyptic and destructive, play an active role in Zola's picture of a world in which food and the injustice…


Book cover of Second Harvest

Stephen Clarke Author Of The Spy Who Inspired Me

From my list on why the French deny their own history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have lived almost all my adult life in France, and have spent that whole time wondering what makes the French so French. One of the answers is their attitude to their own history. The French have got a lot of upheaval to process: at least five revolutions since 1789, and two World Wars fought on their soil, including a Nazi occupation that they still haven’t digested. I didn’t start writing about the French until I’d been living in France for about 10 years – I didn’t want to write like a tourist, and it took me that long to unweave the first strands of their DNA. I’ve never stopped writing about them since, half a dozen Merde novels and as many non-fiction books later.

Stephen's book list on why the French deny their own history

Stephen Clarke Why Stephen loves this book

A bit of a cheat, this one. It’s probably my favourite French novel, precisely because it is timeless and seems to ignore everything about French history. I don’t think there’s one mention or symptom of the Revolution, no scar of the First World War, no French over-intellectualizing. It’s just nature and humankind going head-to-head in a brutally realistic, but starkly beautiful, Provençal landscape. By the way, I don’t like the English title – Regain means regrowth, the first signs of recovery. Personally, I’d prefer a title like Signs of Life. And this novel is all about a tiny hamlet in southern France that is on the verge of death. Only one man of working age remains amongst the ruined houses; the fields are fallow; there are no women. Then a tinker comes through, dragging his unwilling, abused femme with him. She catches the lone male peasant’s eye, cosmic chemistry occurs,…

By Geoffrey Myers , Jean Giono , Louis William Graux , Henri Fluchere

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Second Harvest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Aubignane is a village in Provence; or, rather, it was, for it has long been dying. The only inhabitants remaining are the old blacksmith, the well-digger s widow and Panturle, the hunter. Now the blacksmith and the widow abandon the village, the latter promising she will find Panturle a wife. He is not made for solitude and gradually he becomes morose almost to the point of madness. Then a woman comes to the village as if by some supernatural path. She is all it takes for Panturle to start digging the land again and planting wheat, a second harvest. The…


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Book cover of The Mobile Life

The Mobile Life by Diane Lemieux,

How do you create a happy life when you move away from home for the first time; or move to a new city or country for work or studies or love; or retire somewhere new? The Mobile Life guides you through the challenge of making new friends and inventing new…

Book cover of Les Miserables

Richard Goodman Author Of French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France

From my list on 19th century French novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a Francophile for as long as I can remember. Something about France and French literature grabbed me by the heart when I was a young man and continues to do so. I’ve lived in France twice–a year each time–and have written about those experiences in books and essays. It’s 19th-century French literature that especially draws me and has deeply influenced my own writing.  

Richard's book list on 19th century French novels

Richard Goodman Why Richard loves this book

We all know the title. It’s become a record-breaking musical phenomenon. The book is a phenomenon in itself. It was a voyage I took for a few spellbound weeks, and I read it in a stone house in a small village in the South of France. It is a book of great sympathy and grace. 

Victor Hugo’s heart is large—at least measured by this story of an escaped prisoner who tries to do good with his life but is pursued relentlessly by a police officer, Javert. I found with this book, as the great writers always show me, that character is all. Hugo drew me into the struggles and losses of his people so ably and memorably that I still think of them years later. 

By Victor Hugo , Jillian Tamaki (illustrator) , Christine Donougher (translator)

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Les Miserables as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a brilliant new translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs. The Wretched ( Les Miserables) is the basis for both the longest running musical on the West End and the highly-acclaimed recent film starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, and by the relentless investigations of…


Book cover of A Very Private Diary: A Nurse in Wartime

Wendy Webster Author Of Mixing It: Diversity in World War Two Britain

From my list on migrants and refugees in twentieth-century Britain.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian and writer and worked in universities all my life. I love writing and everything about it—pencils, pens, notebooks, keyboards, Word—not to mention words. I started writing the histories of migrants and refugees in twentieth-century Britain (and their entanglement with the history of the British Empire) in the 1980s and then kept going. When I studied history at university, migrants and refugees were never mentioned. They still weren’t on historians’ radar much when I started writing about them. Here I’ve picked stories that are not widely known and histories that show how paying attention to migrants and refugees changes ideas about what British history is and who made it. 

Wendy's book list on migrants and refugees in twentieth-century Britain

Wendy Webster Why Wendy loves this book

I chose Mary Morris’s diary because her writing is so engaging. She wrote in June 1940, "We are not allowed to go out with patients, or even speak to them on matters other than their treatment, Pierre is charming. I shall go out with him." In 1944 when she was nursing in Normandy she wrote, "A badly wounded cockney says 'thanks mate' to Hans as he gives him his tea and fixes his pillow. Why are they all so tolerant of each other inside this canvas tent, and killing each other outside?" Through her entries we meet all kinds of people, just like she did. The diary is also part of the history of Irish people in Britain. In the twentieth century the majority of Irish migrants were women, most of them young and single like Mary who was 18 when she arrived to train as a nurse—and was told…

By Mary Morris ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Very Private Diary as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The newly discovered diary of a wartime nurse - a fascinating, dramatic and unique insight into the experiences of a young nurse in the Second World War. Mary Mulry was eighteen years old when she arrived in London from Ireland to begin training as a nurse. The year was 1939. She had hoped for an adventure and a new start; she could not have predicted what the next seven years would bring. In this extraordinary diary Mary recorded in intimate detail her experiences as a nurse on the Home Front and later working on the frontline in Europe. In London,…


Book cover of Ireland: Social, Political, and Religious

Mary Ryan Author Of Under the Wild Sky: A Saga of Love and War in Revolutionary Ireland

From my list on unusual history that fascinated me.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live in Dublin, Ireland and am the author of eleven novels, many of them Irish bestsellers, all of them translated into foreign languages, most of them also published in the US by St Martin’s Press. A lawyer by profession, I gave up my law practice to concentrate on writing fiction, beginning with an historical novel Whispers in the Wind which was a No. 1 Irish bestseller. History is my passion.

Mary's book list on unusual history that fascinated me

Mary Ryan Why Mary loves this book

First published in 1839 this is a fascinating history of Ireland from an outsider’s perspective. De Beaumont, a Frenchman, was a grandson of Lafayette and a lifelong friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America. He visited Ireland in 1835 and two years later L’Irlande appeared in two volumes, with an English translation later that year. An intellectual tour de force, the book was an immediate bestseller and remained popular for decades. His contemptuous howl of outrage directed at the British administration in Ireland reverberated down the nineteenth century.

By Gustave de Beaumont , W. C. Taylor (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ireland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Paralleling his friend Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to America, Gustave de Beaumont travelled through Ireland in the mid-1830s to observe its people and society. In "Ireland", he chronicles the history of the Irish and offers up a national portrait on the eve of the Great Famine. Published to acclaim in France, "Ireland" remained in print there until 1914. The English edition, translated by William Cooke Taylor and published in 1839, was not reprinted. This rediscovered masterpiece, in a single volume for the first time, reproduces the 19th century Taylor translation and includes an introduction on Beaumont and his world.


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Book cover of Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully

Unlearning Silence by Elaine Lin Hering,

Unlearning Silence is paradigm-shifting book looking at the pervasive influence of silence and how we can begin to dismantle it at home and at work. 

Having a seat at the table doesn’t mean that your voice is actually welcome. Knowing something is wrong doesn't mean it's easy to speak up.…

Book cover of Paris is Always a Good Idea

Ann Claire Author Of A Cyclist's Guide to Crime & Croissants

From my list on reading trip to France.

Why am I passionate about this?

Until recently, my lovely in-laws kept a home in southern France near where my father-in-law grew up. Their hilltop village was everything my summer-in-France fantasies could imagine: red-tile roofs, overflowing flower boxes, croissants on every corner (or at least four), bustling markets, and palm trees framing a snowcapped peak. Downsizing in their eighties meant selling the house, but some of my fondest memories will always reside there. This summer most of my travels will take place from my garden in Colorado. I plan to trek the world through books. These are some of my favorite reads for an armchair trip to France through romance, mysteries, exploration, and cooking.  

Ann's book list on reading trip to France

Ann Claire Why Ann loves this book

The title says it all—Paris is always a good idea! My now-husband romantically invited me to meet him in Paris, way back when, so it’s a special place for me. So is this book, which is a fun, emotional story about love, wanderlust, and finding one’s self.

Chelsea Martin threw herself into work to cope with her mother’s death. Seven years later, her father announces he’ll remarry, prompting Chelsea to examine her own life. She plans a trip to Europe to retrace the last time she remembers being happy.

I adore Chelsea for her bravery and this book for transporting me to gorgeous places, from Paris to Ireland and a vineyard in Italy. 

By Jenn Mckinlay ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Paris is Always a Good Idea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of Popsugar’s Best New Books for Summer 2020

A thirty-year-old woman retraces her gap year through Ireland, France, and Italy to find love—and herself—in this hilarious and heartfelt novel.

It's been seven years since Chelsea Martin embarked on her yearlong postcollege European adventure. Since then, she's lost her mother to cancer and watched her sister marry twice, while Chelsea's thrown herself into work, becoming one of the most talented fundraisers for the American Cancer Coalition, and with the exception of one annoyingly competent coworker, Jason Knightley, her status as most successful moneymaker is unquestioned.

When her introverted mathematician father…


Book cover of The Ebony Tower

Rosalind Brackenbury Author Of The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier

From my list on set in France with themes to match.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m fascinated by these themes – love, France, mystery, women’s lives, war, and peace. My parents took me to France when I was 12 and I’ve spent years there in between and go back whenever I can. I started reading in French when sent to be an au pair in Switzerland when I was 17. My own novel, The Lost Love Letters Of Henri Fournier was absorbing to write as it contains all of the above. I found an unpublished novel of Fournier’s in a village in rural France a few years ago and decided I had to write about him and his lover, Pauline, who was a famous French actress. 

Rosalind's book list on set in France with themes to match

Rosalind Brackenbury Why Rosalind loves this book

Another story that's impossible to forget – actually this is a novella in a collection of stories with this name. Again, about a lost house in a forest in France, an artist, a young man in love, and the two young women who bewitch him in turns. John Fowles is an English writer from the 1960s, whose work I loved when young and still do. He was much influenced by Alain-Fournier.

By John Fowles ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ebony Tower as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Ebony Tower, comprising a novella, three stories, and a translation of a medieval French tale, echoes themes from John Fowles's internationally celebrated novels as it probes the fitful relations between love and hate, pleasure and pain, fantasy and reality.


Book cover of Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc

Megan E. Freeman Author Of Alone

From my list on to introduce readers to novels in verse.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a poet and author living and writing in Northern Colorado. I love reading (and writing) novels in verse because they invite the reader into an active relationship with the author-poet. The story is co-created through mutual trust and imagination: the reader has to trust the author to provide enough language to reveal the narrative, and the author has to trust the reader to fill in details left by the white space on the page. Through this mutual effort and creative collaboration, dazzling stories emerge.

Megan's book list on to introduce readers to novels in verse

Megan E. Freeman Why Megan loves this book

In Voices, David Elliott uses formal verse to explore the last hours that Joan of Arc lived. Told from multiple points of view, including the voice of the flame that will burn Joan at the stake, Elliott chooses specific poetic forms to reflect fundamental truths about the different characters. All forms of verse in the book were popular during Joan’s actual lifetime, and Elliott provides an interesting author’s note at the back of the book. Aside from being a poetic tour de force, Voices is a true page-turner, and readers will root for Joan to triumph over her enemies, even as they dread the inevitable outcome.

By David Elliott ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Voices as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Told through medieval poetic forms and in the voices of the people and objects in Joan of Arc's life, (including her family and even the trees, clothes, cows, and candles of her childhood), Voices offers an unforgettable perspective on an extraordinary young woman. Along the way it explores timely issues such as gender, misogyny, and the peril of speaking truth to power. Before Joan of Arc became a saint, she was a girl inspired. It is that girl we come to know in Voices.


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Book cover of Heidi Across America: One Woman's Journey on a Bicycle Through the Heartland

Heidi Across America by Heidi Beierle,

A memoir of homecoming by bicycle and how opening our hearts to others enables us to open our hearts to ourselves.

When the 2008 recession hit, 33-year-old Heidi Beierle was single, underemployed, and looking for a way out of her darkness. She returned to school, but her gloom deepened. All…

Book cover of The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution

Jeff Horn Author Of The Making of a Terrorist: Alexandre Rousselin and the French Revolution

From my list on the terror in the French Revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been trying to understand revolutionary violence my whole life, in the classroom and through scholarship. I am fundamentally interested in questions of “how” and “so what” because even the best, most heavily evidenced historical reconstructions of collective decisions rely heavily on conjecture, especially when it comes to something as complex and controversial as revolutionary violence. My biography of Alexandre Rousselin, an eyewitness and participant in French politics across the Revolutionary era, brings to life the choices and pressures that influenced his actions without minimizing the price he paid for those choices. Rousselin’s extraordinary life story contextualizes and engages understandings of the Terror in the French Revolution like those reviewed below.

Jeff's book list on the terror in the French Revolution

Jeff Horn Why Jeff loves this book

Tackett is the historian who has taught me the most about the French Revolution. 

This book is a magisterial evocation of the mentality and choices of the men and women who decided to deploy state-sponsored violence on behalf of the Revolutionary French government. 

It shows the era as a crucible that molded many people who had entered politics on behalf of liberty, equality, and fraternity to embrace the law on suspects and the guillotine. 

Tackett, as always, bases his analysis on personal reflections and caches of letters, digging deep to find new and different voices that conjure the emotional tenor of the shifts and upheavals of the Revolutionary crisis. 

It shows how the French Revolution of 1789 got to the Terror of 1793-94.

By Timothy Tackett ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest. Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror?

"By attending to the role of emotions in propelling the Terror, Tackett steers a more nuanced course than many previous historians have managed...Imagined terrors, as...Tackett very usefully reminds us, can have even more political…


Book cover of 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry
Book cover of The Belly of Paris
Book cover of Second Harvest

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Interested in France, Ireland, and Paris?

France 969 books
Ireland 323 books
Paris 406 books