100 Books Like The Birthday Party

Elizabeth Taylor—not to be confused with the actress of the same name—has been called ‘the unsung heroine of British twentieth-century fiction.’ I wholeheartedly agree, and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is Taylor at her sublime best. It’s the tale of an elderly woman, wealthy but recently widowed, who’s faced with a choice: "Do I spend my last days in a care home—or check into a grand hotel?" She opts for the latter and finds herself among a group of fascinating characters, each as eccentric as she herself. 

Insightful about the sadness and loneliness of ageing, this book did not make me feel despondent about growing older. On the contrary, it showed me that love, happiness, and a sense of adventure can be ours at any age, if we’re willing to take chances and open our hearts to others.

Vagabonds in France is a lighthearted book about an unexpected travel adventure to France. Please find out how life threw a lemon at this couple by losing their home and their attempt to make lemonade. Putting all their furniture in storage, they left everything behind to experience an adventure of a lifetime. With no mortgage or rent to pay, they left with no return date or home to come back to. They traveled from Florida (Tampa and Key West) to Portugal (Funchal, Madeira), to Spain (Malaga, Cartagena, and Barcelona), to the Cote d'Azur in the south of France (Antibes, Nice, Eze, St. Paul de Vence), to Provence (Arles, Avignon), then a month in Paris.

This is a classic whole year (or semester) method to learn Spanish. I recommend it both for teachers and students since it is so complete and so well structured, that it can be well profited from both sides. 

The method is designed to fast forward and the new versions have been improved with the help of teachers who already used it, which is so interesting. It’s well organized: 18 units divided in 5 points each (goals; texts-oral and written; grammar; activities for grammar and lexic practice; and a final task to be ideally prepared in group: a script for a radio show).

The pack is completed with audios that show the differences between Spanish language all over the world.

This is, hands down, the single funniest book I have ever read. What’s amazing is that in addition, it’s really a heartfelt memoir. Harrison Scott Key can take contentious family relationships and use them to simultaneously make your heart ache and your face hurt from laughing so much. He’s also skilled at self-deprecating humor, unabashedly highlighting his own flaws throughout his story. The title refers to the author’s father and the book chronicles interactions from youth onward—all the cringe-worthy moments when a parent and child simply cannot see eye to eye (and you can tell they probably never will). And yet the undercurrent of love throughout is what brings in the heartache that balances out the hilarity. Again, this is the single funniest book I have ever read, and that should count for something! 

I guess I’s not a coincidence that this series of fiction books are written by the same writers as the previous one, since both of them have the same high quality in their content and are grammatically so well focused. 

The protagonist is Lola Lago, a detective who will solve a case per book.

The books range from level A1 to level B1 and come with an audiobook. The length of the stores is perfect (45-60 pages) and the format light enough to feel that you can do it. Every one of them is well focused on its level, and you can find, at the end, lovely explanation notes and light and fun comprehension exercises.

This is the heartwarming and inspiring story of the journey a great chef took from serving as a lowly apprentice to becoming a leader in establishing new food traditions in America. I especially enjoyed the many funny stories about Pepin and his family. Warning: the book includes many of his favorite recipes that will cause hunger pangs as you read the book. 

Everyone knows that there are no “French people.” Each region has its particular culture, and Paris is a country unto itself. Focusing on one particular artisan, his clients, and his neighborhood, Carhart helps us to understand what it means to inhabit a single quartier of Paris. It’s one of the most beautiful memoirs I’ve ever read – and I don’t even play the piano!

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.

I felt my net worth increase 25% just from reading this book, for Ian Fleming lavishes his world of French casinos and international crime in such opulence that you can feel the velvet smoking jacket slip over your shoulders with each turn of the page.

The debut of super-spy extraordinaire James Bond is so far removed from the celluloid pandemonium we all know and love that one would be forgiven for thinking MI6 veteran and fellow writer John le Carré was the real man behind the typewriter.

Fleming’s Bond is a cold, calculating career agent but also a human being, one with genuine weaknesses and failings that spoil the otherwise glamorous countenance of his operation but which also make the victories that much sweeter. Nobody does it better!

Having read well over two dozen books on the subject of French history, with a general focus on the especially vibrant period in Paris from the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II, and a laser focus on the 1920s, I find it nearly impossible to rank these five books in the order of their importance. That said, I am choosing this book as my 1st recommendation because at 416 pages, and richly illustrated by hundreds of stunning photographs and images, it casts the broadest, most comprehensive net over this extraordinary era. I proclaim the two decades in Paris that readers will discover in this book, to represent the most important international convergence of painters, sculptors, intellectuals, novelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, dancers, actors, choreographers, musicians, composers, photographers, designers, and fashionistas, in the history of the world. Do I exaggerate? Here is a very incomplete list,… show more.