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Get the featured set of Essential Reading, our top picks of what to read, and get free shipping on anything else you order.

Essential Reading

Item EXFRN506. Buy these 5 items as a set for $76 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
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Long Ago in France, The Years in Dijon

Long Ago in France, The Years in Dijon

by M.F.K. Fisher

  • FOOD
  • 1992
  • PAPER
  • 159 PAGES

A memoir of Fisher's years in France in the late '20s and early '30s, a time of exuberant discoveries of the glories of French food and French culture. (FRN21, $13.95)

A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France

A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France

by Georgeanne Brennan

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2007
  • HARD COVER
  • 209 PAGES
  • FAVORITE
  • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

Marvelously frank about daily chores and the decidedly unglamorous business of raising goats and pigs, Brennan lards her earthy tale of the rural life with recipes, one per chapter. (FRN687, $12.95)

The Road from the Past, Traveling through History in France

The Road from the Past, Traveling through History in France

by Ina Caro

  • HISTORY
  • 1996
  • PAPER
  • 339 PAGES
  • BEST SELLER

Time travel through France by way of its finest castles, chateaux, cathedrals and monasteries. This unusual travelogue is an invaluable companion for traveling in Paris, southern France, the Dordogne and the Loire Valley, combining personal observation with large doses of well-presented history. (FRN03, $17.00)

Eyewitness Guide Provence & the Cote D'Azur

Eyewitness Guide Provence & the Cote D'Azur

by Roger Williams

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 272 PAGES

This is an illustrated, colorful guide to the art and architecture, literature, history and attractions of Provence. With photographs and site plans, maps and sections on the Riviera, the Var, Bouches-du-Rhones, Vaucluse and the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. (FRN18, $23.00)

Rhone Valley Map

Rhone Valley Map

by Michelin Travel Publications

  • MAP

A colorful, detailed map of the Rhone Valley from Lyon to the Mediterranean at a scale of 1:200,000. (FRN64, $13.95)

 
French or Foe?

French or Foe?


by Polly Platt

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 292 PAGES
  • OUT OF PRINT

With humor, directness and great insight, this compact book is an expert and entertaining guide to the French and how to get along with them. The expanded third edition addresses France's romance with cell phones and includes a short chapter of recent vignettes. (FRN54, $16.95)

Lonely Planet French Phrasebook

Lonely Planet French Phrasebook


by Marie-Helene Girard | Anny Monet

  • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
  • 2011
  • PAPER

This handy phrasebook focuses on pronunciation, basic grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler. (FRN120, $8.99)

Made in France, A Shopper's Guide

Made in France, A Shopper's Guide


by Laura Morelli

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 208 PAGES

Both a fascinating history of France's artisanal legacy and an insider's shopping guide, Made in France includes illustrations, maps, a primer on French shopping culture, and craft festivals. (FRN706, $24.95)

Michelin Green Guide Burgundy / Jura

Michelin Green Guide Burgundy / Jura


by Michelin Travel Publications

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 469 PAGES

A thorough introduction to the region in the classic Michelin style. (FRN164, $21.99)

The Cook and the Gardener, A Year of Recipes and Writings from the French Countryside

The Cook and the Gardener, A Year of Recipes and Writings from the French Countryside


by Amanda Hesser

  • FOOD
  • 1999
  • HARD COVER
  • 632 PAGES

An American cook in Burgundy, the author records her recipes and growing fondness for a very French gardener, in this narrative cookbook. It includes 250 recipes and some fine observations on local people and places. (FRN85, $35.00)

The Food of France

The Food of France


by Waverly Root

  • FOOD
  • 1992
  • PAPER
  • 450 PAGES

An evocative and beautifully written survey of French food. First published in 1958 and revised in the mid-1970s, the book covers the important regions of French cuisine by dividing them into domains of Butter (northern France), Fat (Alsace) and Oil (the south). (FRN17, $18.00)

A Traveller's History of France

A Traveller's History of France


by Robert Cole

  • HISTORY
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

This fast-moving survey covers the conquests of ancient Gaul through the heady days of revolution to modern times. (FRN08, $14.95)

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong


by Jean-Benoit Nadeau | Julie Barlow

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 351 PAGES

This lively, astute examination by two Canadian journalists tackles the contradictions and complexities of the French character, paying particular attention to the question of why the French resist globalization. (FRN755, $16.95)

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise


by Peter Abelard | Betty Radice

  • HISTORY
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 309 PAGES

The correspondence of the famous 12th-century lovers, translated from the medieval French. This Penguin Classic edition translated by Betty Radice. Peter Abelard's "Historia Calamitatum" is a classic. (FRN75, $15.00)

The Most Beautiful Villages of Burgundy


by James Bentley | Hugh Palmer

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1998
  • HARD COVER
  • 224 PAGES

Divided geographically, this handsome book is an illustrated portrait of the region, its landscape, architecture and people. With maps, a travel guide and 260 photographs. (FRN80, $40.00)

The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence

The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence


by Michael Jacobs

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES
  • COMING IN MAY

With an excellent introduction on the history, culture, landscapes and the pleasures of Southern France, this illusrtated guide features 34 towns and villages across Provence from the Vacluse to Bonnieux and Gordes, tranquil Alpine villages and southern vineyards. (FRN28, $26.95)

Cezanne and Provence, The Painter and His Culture


by Nina Maria Athanassoglou-Kallmyer

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 2003
  • HARD COVER
  • 334 PAGES

This thorough study of Cezanne's work takes as its jumping off point his 1886 move from Paris to his native Aix-en-Provence. The author uses the history and culture of Provence to provide a fresh analysis of the landscape's influence on the painter's technique. (FRN554, $65.00)

A Moveable Feast

A Moveable Feast


by Ernest Hemingway

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1996
  • PAPER
  • 211 PAGES

A treasure for anyone interested in Parisian cafe society and its luminaries circa 1925. Hemingway includes sharp portraits of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford and others who idled on their way to greatness. (FRN26, $15.00)

A Year in Provence

A Year in Provence


by Peter Mayle

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 1991
  • PAPER
  • 207 PAGES

The original best-selling tale of settling down in Provence, told with warmth and a great deal of humor. It offers a wonderful inside look at the charms and quirks of the people and the countryside in the south of France. (FRN19, $14.95)

My Life in France

My Life in France


by Julia Child

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 317 PAGES

Child's characteristically ebullient record of Paris and Provence, her many friends, family and memorable meals, in the years after WWII, turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci (as husband Paul). (FRN596, $16.00)

Two Towns in Provence

Two Towns in Provence


by M. F. K. Fisher

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1983
  • PAPER
  • 208 PAGES
  • FAVORITE

Celebrated food writer M.F.K. Fisher contrasts village life in Aix-en-Provence with bustling Marseilles, evoking both with anecdote and loving description. (FRN27, $16.95)

France, A Traveler's Literary Companion

France, A Traveler's Literary Companion


by William Rodarmor

  • ANTHOLOGY
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

This collection contains literary gems from all corners of France--not just Paris--by a select group of 20th-century French writers, from Colette to Georges Simenon. (FRN767, $14.95)

In a Dark Wood Wandering, A Novel of the Middle Ages

In a Dark Wood Wandering, A Novel of the Middle Ages


by Hella Haasse

  • LITERATURE
  • 1991
  • PAPER
  • 594 PAGES

With a cast of thousands including Joan of Arc and the Dukes of Burgundy, this 1949 historical novel renders the political intrigue, people and texture of 15th-century Europe. Haasse captures medieval court life during the Hundred Years War. (FRN86, $21.95)

The Dream of Scipio

The Dream of Scipio


by Iain Pears

  • MYSTERY
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 464 PAGES

This absorbing and complex historical novel interweaves stories from ancient, Medieval and modern days set in the Rhone Valley. (FRN470, $16.00)

The Botanist and the Vintner, How Wine Was Saved for the World

The Botanist and the Vintner, How Wine Was Saved for the World


by Christy Campbell

  • SCIENCE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 314 PAGES

In this witty book Campbell interweaves a dramatic tale of the devastation of vineyards in 1860's France with French cultural history and a tale of the mad scramble by scientists (along with witches, priests and mystics) to discover the cause and cure. The French were none too pleased that salvation (as well as the disease) came in the form of American root stock. (FRN497, $14.95)

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