100 books like Once Upon a Time in France

By Fabien Nury, Sylvain Vallee (illustrator), Ivanka Hahnenberger (translator)

Here are 100 books that Once Upon a Time in France fans have personally recommended if you like Once Upon a Time in France. Shepherd is a community of 9,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Asterix and Cleopatra

By René Goscinny, Albert Uderzo,

Book cover of Asterix and Cleopatra

Diaa Anwar Author Of The Sculptor and the Sacred River

From the list on comics with historical background.

Who am I?

In Egypt, we did not have our own Arab comics, but different worlds came to us from translated comics, American (Disney and superheroes), and French comics. I did not like superhero comics, I loved Disney comics and French comics, and n addition to my passion for reading history, some French series combine this, such as the Alix series. I would have loved to have a historical background to the events that prompted me to read more about them and get to know the real characters, how they lived, and how they ended.

Diaa's book list on comics with historical background

Why did Diaa love this book?

This book is from the Asterix series and in general when you read Goscinny's books, you will not regret it, as it will inspire you with many ideas.

He was able to create humor from humans, animals, inanimate objects, and all elements of the story.

As for this book, I chose it because of the events taking place in Egypt, also because of the coherent plot, fast-flowing events, sense of humor, and new ideas. As usual in this type of book, there are some historical facts, but the general structure of the story is fictional.

The historical facts here are Queen Cleopatra VII, Julius Caesar, and the relationship between them, while the rest of the events are fictional and comic.

By René Goscinny, Albert Uderzo,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Asterix and Cleopatra as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The latest action-packed adventure from our indomitable Gauls, Asterix and the Griffin, is out now!

How can lovely Queen Cleopatra show Julius Caesar that ancient Egypt is still a great nation? Her architect Edifis recruits his Gaulish friends to help him build a magnificent palace within three months. There are villainous saboteurs to be outwitted, but Asterix, Obelix and Getafix still find time to go sight-seeing - and leave their mark on the pyramids and the Sphinx's nose.


Book cover of The Mystery of the Great Pyramid Pt 1

Diaa Anwar Author Of The Sculptor and the Sacred River

From the list on comics with historical background.

Who am I?

In Egypt, we did not have our own Arab comics, but different worlds came to us from translated comics, American (Disney and superheroes), and French comics. I did not like superhero comics, I loved Disney comics and French comics, and n addition to my passion for reading history, some French series combine this, such as the Alix series. I would have loved to have a historical background to the events that prompted me to read more about them and get to know the real characters, how they lived, and how they ended.

Diaa's book list on comics with historical background

Why did Diaa love this book?

This book, from Black and Mortimer series, is characterized by wide imagination and attention to details, it may be flawed by some verbosity in the narration, but this was appropriate for that period.

Perhaps the modern generation gets bored of the abundance of descriptions, but if you begin reading this story you will not leave it before the final scene. The events take place in Egypt in the forties of the 20th century, and as an Egyptian I realize how faithful Jacobs was in conveying the image of Cairo in the forties with the utmost honesty and accuracy.

The historical background here is the fact that there was a historian named Manethon, and that Pharaoh Akhenaton existed, and his tomb had not been found yet.

By Edgar P. Jacobs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mystery of the Great Pyramid Pt 1 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Professor Philip Mortimer has decided to spend his holidays in Cairo with his trusty servant, Nasir. There he plans to meet an old friend, who offers him the fantastic opportunity of satisfying his passion for Egyptology - to take part in the deciphering of some recently discovered papyrus coming from mummies of the Ptolemaic age. They soon discover that one of the fragments deals with the Chamber of Horus - a fabled crypt that could contain priceless treasures...


Book cover of The Blue Lotus

Diaa Anwar Author Of The Sculptor and the Sacred River

From the list on comics with historical background.

Who am I?

In Egypt, we did not have our own Arab comics, but different worlds came to us from translated comics, American (Disney and superheroes), and French comics. I did not like superhero comics, I loved Disney comics and French comics, and n addition to my passion for reading history, some French series combine this, such as the Alix series. I would have loved to have a historical background to the events that prompted me to read more about them and get to know the real characters, how they lived, and how they ended.

Diaa's book list on comics with historical background

Why did Diaa love this book?

This comic book is one of Hergé's masterpieces, and in the three previous books Hergé was still experimenting.

In the book (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets) the graphics were weak and the scenario were naive, and the book (Tintin in the Congo) was not successful, and the book (Cigars of the Pharoah) made a great development, but the scenario did not reach the degree of maturity.

But in this book, Hergé reached the mixture that he would become famous for later. The clever combination of adventure and political events of that period, in a distinctive style, and drawings that are imprinted in memory.

It is one of the classic books that you will definitely not regret reading.

By Herge,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

One of the most iconic characters in children's literature

Herge's classic comic book creation Tintin is one of the most recognisable characters in children's books. These highly collectible editions of the original 24 adventures will delight Tintin fans old and new. Perfect for lovers of graphic novels, mysteries and historical adventures.

The world's most famous travelling reporter is on the trail of the Blue Lotus. In India, Tintin gets drawn into a dangerous mystery revolving around a madness-inducing poison. He traces its origins to Shanghai and a nefarious web of opium traffickers. But can he outwit the crooks?

Join the…


The Reprieve

By Jean-Pierre Gibrat,

Book cover of The Reprieve

Diaa Anwar Author Of The Sculptor and the Sacred River

From the list on comics with historical background.

Who am I?

In Egypt, we did not have our own Arab comics, but different worlds came to us from translated comics, American (Disney and superheroes), and French comics. I did not like superhero comics, I loved Disney comics and French comics, and n addition to my passion for reading history, some French series combine this, such as the Alix series. I would have loved to have a historical background to the events that prompted me to read more about them and get to know the real characters, how they lived, and how they ended.

Diaa's book list on comics with historical background

Why did Diaa love this book?

This comic book is one of the difficult books for the author, unless he is a lover of the work and immersed in its details.

The story is romantic, and takes place in almost one place. Nevertheless, the writer succeeds in not leaving us an opportunity to get bored, especially with the charming Gibrat drawings, which resemble a group of artistic paintings.

The historical background here is the Second World War, and the period of the Nazi occupation of France, which is of the type of war romance, the story of Julien who survived a train accident, to spend a year waiting for a deferred death, in which he recalls his love story with Cecile, and in this year the fates change many persons.

I liked this comic so much when I first read it that I translated it into Arabic, and I recommend you to read this comic.

By Jean-Pierre Gibrat,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Meet Cécile as she tries to help escaped prisoner-of-war Julien Sarlat avoid capture during the Occupation of France in 1943 in this prequel to the award-winning graphic novel Flight of the Raven.

Julien has escaped from a prisoner-of-war train headed for Germany, but fate intervenes when the train is bombed and among the victims a body is identified as his. Dead to the world, he takes advantage of the situation and hides in the small village of Cambeyrac, using his secret observation post overlooking the village square to watch the permanent theater that people offer in the course of the…


The Collaborator

By Alice Kaplan,

Book cover of The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach

Rosanna Warren Author Of Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters

From the list on France modern art, culture, and political conflict.

Who am I?

I’m a poet, literary critic, translator, and biographer, and I grew up partly in France. I became obsessed with Max Jacob when I was twenty. Max Jacob—mystic, poet, painter, and suffering lover—took hold of me, and I found myself writing poems to him, in his voice, in my sketchbooks. They were among my first published poems: he redirected my life. A few years later I stumbled into writing his biography, never imagining that it would take thirty-five years: it came out from W. W. Norton in 2020, along with my most recent book of poems So Forth. I teach Comparative Literature in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Rosanna's book list on France modern art, culture, and political conflict

Why did Rosanna love this book?

An expert in French fascism, Kaplan meticulously documents the career and the fate of the anti-Semitic, collaborationist novelist and journalist, Robert Brasillach. He was one of the few prominent intellectuals executed after the Liberation in France. His trial in late 1944 and execution in February 1945 put on the public stage the drama the country had just experienced: the Occupation, collaboration with the Nazis, the Resistance. As Kaplan presents it, Brasillach’s eloquent defense lawyer, the equally eloquent prosecutor, and Brasillach himself articulated the collision of visions of what it meant to be French and what it meant to be a patriot (or a traitor), arguments that still agitate France today. 

By Alice Kaplan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

On February 6, 1945, a 35-year-old French writer and newspaper editor named Robert Brasillach was executed for treason by a French firing squad. He was the only writer of any distinction to be put to death by the French Liberation government during the violent days of score-settling known as the Purge. In this book, Alice Kaplan, author of the memoir "French Lessons" tells the story of Brasillach's rise and fall: his emergence as the golden boy of literary fascism during the 1930s, his wartime collaboration with the Nazis, his dramatic trial and his afterlife as a martyr for French rightists…


France Under the Germans

By Philippe Burrin, Janet Lloyd (translator),

Book cover of France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise

Bertram M. Gordon Author Of Historical Dictionary of World War II France: The Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938-1946

From the list on France in World War II.

Who am I?

As a child in New York, I was interested in history to the point where by third grade I had memorized the list of U.S. presidents beginning with George Washington. The world was more Eurocentric than now, and I was taken by what I saw as the richness of European history. Surrounded later by Leftist academics, I became interested in the Right. Why were so many, especially among the lower middle classes, drawn to the Right and fascism during the first half of the twentieth century? This led to my interviewing and studying World War II pro-Nazi French collaborators. Later I branched into food history and the history of tourism.

Bertram's book list on France in World War II

Why did Bertram love this book?

Whereas historians and others in postwar France focused on French resistance to Nazi Germany during their Second World War occupation (1940-1944) relatively few in wartime France did in fact actively resist the Germans. Instead, while some in France either collaborated with the Germans after France’s defeat in 1940, many and arguably the majority chose a more passive accommodation to German supremacy. Especially in the early years of the occupation, French civilians often found the German soldiers more polite and seemingly respectful of the country they had just conquered than had been France’s British allies. Many in France, artists, intellectuals, business, and labor leaders, as well as military and clergy, were quite willing to accept German rule. Some hoped that German occupation would lead toward a more authoritarian French state, more in line with those of Germany and Italy at the time. Anti-Semitism was prevalent in France, where local people often…

By Philippe Burrin, Janet Lloyd (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked France Under the Germans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From 1940 to 1944, the French people adapted in a variety of ways to life under the domination of Nazi Germany. France under the Germans is the definitive study of the choices made by ordinary French citizens during that turbulent historical period, exposing for the first time the degree of their complicity with the Nazis. Acclaimed Swiss historian Philippe Burrin makes use of a wide variety of newly discovered sources: the records of businesses, industrial organizations, and banks; police files; and reports on mail censorship and telephone conversations. France under the Germans is an extraordinary analysis of the ways in…


Verdict On Vichy

By Michael Curtis,

Book cover of Verdict On Vichy: Power and Prejudice in the Vichy France Regime

Boaz Dvir Author Of Saving Israel: The Unknown Story of Smuggling Weapons and Winning a Nation’s Independence

From the list on 21st century nonfiction about the Holocaust.

Who am I?

I started conducting primary research about the Holocaust in the 1990s, when I spent a week interviewing my grandfather, a Holocaust survivor and a pious Hasid, about his life. Fascinated with the survival of his faith, I applied for and received a grant from the Religion News Service to explore spiritual aspects of the Holocaust. I also sought to answer my saba’s question: How did Israelis end up fighting their 1948 War of Independence with Nazi weapons such as the Mauser he had received? I answered it in the 2015 PBS documentary I directed and produced, A Wing and a Prayer, and the 2020 nonfiction book I wrote, Saving Israel.

Boaz's book list on 21st century nonfiction about the Holocaust

Why did Boaz love this book?

Making Cojot, a documentary about a Parisian business consultant who hunted down former Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie, prompted me to closely examine Vichy. This French national administration went out of its way to appease its Nazi occupiers during World War II. But the more answers I dug up, the more questions I had. Verdict on Vichy filled in many of the gaps. For instance, it provided a possible explanation as to why the judges presiding over Barbie’s 1987 trial in Lyon granted his request to sit out the proceedings, thus depriving his victims’ families the opportunity to look him in the eyes as they recounted some of his crimes against humanity. The judges might have pounced at the chance to hide Barbie, who was reportedly ready to spill the beans about French leaders such as then-President François Mitterrand who collaborated with the Nazis. Michael Curtis went to great lengths…

By Michael Curtis,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This masterful book is the first comprehensive reappraisal of the Vichy France regime for over 20 years. France was occupied by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1944, and the exact nature of France's role in the Vichy years is only now beginning to come to light. One of the main reasons that the Vichy history is difficult to tell is that some of France's most prominent politicians, including President Mitterand, have been implicated in the regime. This has meant that public access to key documents has been denied and it is only now that an objective analysis is possible. The…


John Law

By Antoin E. Murphy,

Book cover of John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker

Patrick Honohan Author Of Currency, Credit and Crisis: Central Banking in Ireland and Europe

From the list on big financial scams.

Who am I?

There’s something clinical and yet human about big financial crises, especially those that involve some kind of trickery or fraud. I’ve always been fascinated by this dark side of the world of money, and have been fortunate enough in my career to have had ring-side seats at a few such events in rich and poor countries. Fraud is not at the heart of the “social contrivance of money” but the monetary system is built on an edifice of trust that can all too easily be abused by scammers. From these episodes, we can learn a lot about people, credit, and society’s ways of protecting itself.

Patrick's book list on big financial scams

Why did Patrick love this book?

I have always wondered whether John Law, the creator of the ill-fated Mississippi System that brought the financial system of France to its knees in 1720, a genius who understood money better than anyone before him, or a deluded fantasist who had learnt just enough to create a monetary weapon of mass destruction?

In his careful and well-researched account, Antoin Murphy leans towards the first interpretation, but he offers enough information to allow the reader to form their own conclusions.

By Antoin E. Murphy,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

John Law (1671-1729) left a remarkable legacy of economic concepts from a time when economic conceptualization was very much at an embryonic stage. Yet he is best known-and generally dismissed-today as a rake, duellist, and gambler. This intellectual biography offers a new approach to Law, one that shows him to have been a significant economic theorist with a vision that he attempted to implement as policy in early-eighteenth-century Europe.

Law's style, marked by a clarity and use of modern terminology, stands out starkly against the turgid prose of many of his contemporaries. His vision of a monetary and financial system…


The Nightingale

By Kristin Hannah,

Book cover of The Nightingale

Dave Cenker Author Of Between the Lines

From the list on taking you on an emotional journey.

Who am I?

And though each of us has our own individual stories to tell, a true adventure emerges when we bring them all together as one. That line from Epcot's fireworks show, Illuminations, is my guiding light. As someone who has struggled to identify and express emotion, reading stories that do that with vulnerability and authenticity has supplied me with a path forward. It's what I aim to do with my writing. To inspire, evoke a kaleidoscope of emotions, and connect. Some read to escape reality. I do so to navigate it. As the prelude to Illuminations eloquently states, there's magic when we share our stories and bring them together as one.

Dave's book list on taking you on an emotional journey

Why did Dave love this book?

Occasionally, a book affects you profoundly: as a reader, writer, and person.

As a reader, the characters were part of my life. The ebb and flow of conflict, resolution, and tension was captivating. While reading this book, I slowed down instead of speeding up, to savor every emotion with intensity.

As a writer, Ms. Hannah uses language to convey heart-wrenching emotion. This is the joy, despair, hope, love, anger, and rage I want to share in my stories.

As a person, stories let us inspect the complex intricacies of humanity. It’s inspiring, moving, and encouraging. This one evocatively demonstrates the power of love, family, courage, and hope. I would be surprised if this book disappointed you, and not surprised a bit if it changes you on some deeper level.

By Kristin Hannah,

Why should I read it?

23 authors picked The Nightingale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Soon to be a major motion picture, The Nightingale is a multi-million copy bestseller across the world. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the endurance of women.

This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II when women's stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.

Kristin Hannah's…


The Invisible Woman

By Erika Robuck,

Book cover of The Invisible Woman

Joyce Tremel Author Of Death On A Deadline

From the list on historical mysteries with women in non-traditional jobs.

Who am I?

I’ve been fascinated with historical fiction, especially the World War II era, ever since I listened to my mother playing her Big Band Records. I’ve also loved mysteries since I picked up my first Nancy Drew book. Once I discovered historical mysteries, I haven’t been able to separate the two. I’ve recently expanded my interest to include the first world war. There are so many great stories that I’m afraid I’ll never get to read them all. It was really hard to narrow down my list to five books and I hope you’ll love the ones I’ve chosen for you.

Joyce's book list on historical mysteries with women in non-traditional jobs

Why did Joyce love this book?

I love this book. Although it’s a novel, Virginia Hall was a real person. She was recruited by the Allies to be a spy.

The book is written in present tense—which I usually find distracting—but it works in this book. It really lends an air of immediacy to the story. My heart didn’t stop pounding through the entire book. Even though I knew the basics of Virginia Hall’s life, this novel really brings it to life. She was an extraordinary woman.

By Erika Robuck,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Invisible Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“An extraordinary profile of immense courage and daring.”—Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Left Cuba
 
“If you only read one WWII book this year, make it this one."—Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Orphans
 
In the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation…a gripping historical novel based on the remarkable true story of World War II heroine Virginia Hall, from the bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl
 
France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore—she never wanted the debutante…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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