100 books like The Water of the Hills

The American novelist Henry Miller who loved France described Giono as "one of if not the greatest writer of the twentieth century." This novel is set in deep Provence and tells the tale of a lone shepherd who dedicates his life to reforesting a desolate valley area at the foothills of the Alps. Over forty years he plants his saplings, right up until his death, by which time the valley has been transformed into a paradise for men, creatures, and plants. The writing is sublime, poetic, and inspirational. This story is as relevant today as it was when written seventy years ago.  A must-read.

In my opinion this is one of the great novels about adolescence. What makes it so special is that it is deliciously French and amoral. The story of a French teenage girl, Cecile, and her father. They are a team. You might almost call them a couple. Cecile accompanies her father everywhere including to casinos and bars. She accepts his mistresses. Matters take a more macabre turn when her father invites one of his ladies to holiday with them in the south of France and Cecile learns that he intends to marry this particular woman. Françoise Sagan was eighteen when she wrote this, her first novel. Within months of its publication she became an overnight sensation. The writing is sexy and chic. Sagan perfectly describes the French Riviera in the mid-fifties and a woman’s role in society back then. It was an instant classic and deserves its place in the… show more.

Fitzgerald’s mastery of the English language is beautiful to behold. This book is one of the most eloquent expositions of the control of his prose while at the same time confronting his greatest weakness in life: an inability to find happiness and true love that loves him back. Set on the French Riviera, Tender is the Night is honest and painful. It’s an insight into Fitzgerald’s melancholy world of excess.

This is both fantastic to be a part of and tragic. The tragedy and the beauty are juxtaposed in the most fantastic way–this makes this book one of my favorite romances. I read this book for pure enjoyment. Each sentence makes me smile with its beauty and its profundity. 

This novel couldn’t be more different from my other choices. It is set on a high-tech park called Eden-Olympia nestling (malevolently!) in the hills behind Cannes. The story is fantastic in a way that is born of Ballard’s brilliant mind. It is a twenty-first century, stylised thriller, and way ahead of its time. Ballard takes the edgy, seamier side of life on this French Riviera coast with its racism and elitism several imaginative steps too far and delivers a shocking tale. I read this novel when it was first published and it haunted me for years. After two more readngs, it remains as powerful as my first introduction to it. Definitely a novel I wish I had written.

No one wrote about the South of France with more affection and understanding than Marcel Pagnol. He was a novelist, playwright, director, and memoirist. Pagnol’s family had a small house in the hills near Marseille where they spent summers. His book, My Father’s Glory, is about those months Pagnol spent there as a child and about his family, mostly his father. (The companion book, My Mother’s Castle, concerns his mother more.) The story of his aunt’s sweet, delicate courtship with his eventual uncle is worth reading the book alone. If you’re like me, you will come away from reading this book wishing you’d been part of Pagnol’s kind and joyous family and his life in this little corner of France. The good news is that with this book, you very nearly are.

M.F.K. Fisher was not only one of our greatest food writers, she was one of our greatest writers, period. Fisher lived for long periods in France, and the result of two of these sojourns is Two Towns in Provence, which is about Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. These two iconic towns are a mere forty miles apart in distance but worlds apart in temperament, character, and spirit. Fisher captures both of their personalities with her exquisite prose, guided by her sympathy and love for these cities and their people. She is especially wonderful at capturing Marseille, a city that has been called mysterious, even unknowable. You cannot have a better guide to two of France’s most renowned and remarkable cities.

I am astounded how many people have not read Desiree despite it being the world’s second best-selling historical novel, after Gone with the Wind. A Marseilles silk merchant’s daughter gets engaged to a destitute Corsican Cadet, who ditches her in favor of Josephine de Beauharnais and goes on to become Napoleon, Emperor of France. She marries one of his generals, who is later voted King of Sweden. And yes, it’s all true, just that we didn’t know. What joy! I love the narrator’s strong, innocent, and then maturing voice, which is so porous to her emotions. This inspires me when I write today: emotions make us human. The book teaches us that fate is no straight line; God’s quiver has many arrows. It’s a sweet, female, wonderful twist on the times of the Sharpe Saga!

This story, primarily set in France, is about a guy who loses his job in Great Britain and inherits his uncle’s vineyard in Provence. There are quirky scenes in this book that make you laugh out loud, and scenes that tug at your heartstrings. Years ago, I spent a little time in France and remember looking longingly at French wine country—from the windows of a train, and wishing I could hop off and visit some of those beautiful places. Isn’t that why we love books? We can travel vicariously! 

No book list on any aspect of southern France would be complete without one of Peter Mayle’s many books on his travels and adventures in Provence. 

His initial best seller is a grand introduction to the many small villages, customs, foods, and peoples who maintain the traditional aspects of the unique lifestyle to be found there, which in some places reflects hundreds of years with little change.

I have found in my travels that because this area of France was spared the ravages of the two World Wars, any trip to the region puts the visitor in touch with this remarkable past in a way few other European locales can. I often found myself wrapped up in the incredible history that surrounded me everywhere I went in the region, leading to my own attempt at expressing some of it.

I’ve learned that Peter Mayle, through his books, is like having… show more.

A dream of many who live in cold climates is to live a second life (or first or third) in sunny France, and in particular Provence. Sands mainlines that dream in this book and especially the healing properties of sunshine and lavender. Her heroine recovers from a painful divorce and is reinvigorated, all the best qualities of a vacation, in reality or in reading.